LINELL CLASSIFICATION OF BREAST-CANCER MORPHOLOGY COMPARED TO HISTOLOGIC GRADING, S-PHASE FRACTION AND DNA-PLOIDY

One hundred and fifty-eight histologically verified mammary carcinomas with known mammographic doubling time (DT) were studied with special emphasis on a morphologic classification proposed by Linell et al. [8, 12, 14, 15]. The hypothesis that Linell classification of ductal carc inomas into comedo, tubuloductal and tubular carcinomas is easy to per form with small inter-observer variations, was not fully confirmed. Th e Linell classification was found to correlate well with conventional WHO malignancy grading, S-phase fraction and DNA-ploidy. The Linell cl assification also correlated to surgical stage, lymph node status and DT, but not at all to tumour size. Using distant disease-free survival as an endpoint, the Linell classification gave prognostic information comparable to conventional histologic grading, seeming to be a simple , cheap and reliable method well worth trying on a larger scale.