THE VALUE OF NUCLEAR-DNA AND TEXTURE ANALYSIS BY DIGITAL IMAGE-PROCESSING IN THE DIAGNOSIS OF LIPOMATOUS AND LEIOMYOMATOUS TUMORS

The present study investigates whether the quantitative chromatin patt ern description carried out by means of the digital cell image analysi s of Feulgen-stained nuclei can contribute valuable diagnostic informa tion on sarcomas, A series of 77 soft tissue tumours was consequently studied, This series included 9 benign lipomas versus 26 malignant lip osarcomas and 26 benign leiomyomas versus 16 malignant leiomyosarcomas Of the 26 liposarcomas, 14 were primary and 12 recurrent tumours, Of the 16 leiomyosarcomas, 13 were primary and three recurrent tumours. T he results show that the combined use of principal-components analysis and the discriminant analyses of digital data obtained by means of th e computer-assisted microscope analysis of Feulgen-stained nuclei made it possible to obtain a clear-cut distinction between the three histo pathological groups relating to the lipoma/liposarcoma group of soft t umours, In contrast, while a clear-cut distinction could be made betwe en the recurrent leiomyosarcomas and the primary leiomyosarcomas, such a distinction was not possible between the benign leiomyomas and the malignant primary leiomyosarcomas. This feature, along with previous o nes obtained through DNA ploidy level determination, suggests to us th at leiomyomas, or at least some of them, are in the process of maligna nt transformation. In other words, leiomyomas might be the pre-maligna nt counterpart of leiomyosarcomas, a feature that the present results do not suggest for lipomas versus liposarcomas.