CYTOPHOTOMETRIC INVESTIGATION OF DNA CONTENT IN BLADDER CARCINOMA

(II) An Evaluation of DNA Content in Follow-up of Patients with Bladder Carcinoma

Abstract

Using urinary exfoliated cells or tumor cells, nuclear DNA content, which is considered to show a malignant potential of tumor cells, was measured patients with bladder carcinoma. The results were compared with clinical courses of the patients who were received conservative operation such as TUR, segmental resection or local chemotherapy, i. e. intracavital instillation (Ic I) of chemotherapeutic agents with or without hyperthermia.
In 10 patients who received conservative operation, abnormal findings of DNA content returned to normal pattern after operation except in one case. This case was revealed to have another tumor by random biopsy. Therefore, the detection of DNA content seems to be a tool useful for judgement of curative operation.
A total of 32 patients with bladder carcinoma were studied to compare the prognosis with the DNA content. In a group of high grade and low stage or high grade and high stage, if patients had DNA histogram with hyperploid cells, they were eventually found to have tumor recurrence and rapid progression at a high frequency.
A group treated with Ic I (n=8) was devided into the following 3 groups based upon DNA histogram pattern. The first group who had a stemline in 2C to 4C and narrowly distributed showed good clinical effect. The second groups whose histogram was a few stemlines was observed to show various clinical responses case by case. However, the third group who had unclear stemline and widely distributed was with poor clinical response.
In summary, the detection of DNA content might be of great use in follow-up and choice of treatment method in patients with bladder carcinoma.