A Fundamental Study of Quantitative Cytology in Gastric Cancer Cells

Abstract

While gastric cytology is useful for the diagnosis of carcinoma of the stomach, the present method is entirely dependent on the subjective judgement of the examiner. In this study, I have tried to approach to the quantification of cell findings for the cytologic diagnosis by scanning of the nuclei of the exfoliated cells with a microspectrophotometer. The scanning was made through a 1μ pinhole, recording the absorbance curve at the 538mμ wavelength, and the nuclear size, chromatin content, and chromatin pattern were analysed. The nuclear size was measured with a micrometer, the chromatin content was calculated as an integral of the absorbance curve, and the chromatin pattern was determined in the analysis of the waves. One handred and sixty normal cells and the same number of cancer cells were scanned and the following results were obtained : When the nuclear size only was used as a parameter, correct diagnosis was made in 97.8% (313/320 cells) and only misdiagnosis in 2.2% (7/320 cells); when the chromatin content was used, 98.7% (316/320 cells) was correct and 1.3% (4/320 cells) was wrong ; and when the chromatin pattern only was used, 98.1% (314/320 cells) was correct and 1.9% (6/320 cells) was wrong. When two parameters were combined, only one of 320 cells was misdiagnosed, and all the cells were correctly diagnosed in combination of the three parameters.