ANALYSIS OF NUMERICAL ABERRATIONS IN SPECIFIC CHROMOSOMES BY FLUORESCENT IN-SITU HYBRIDIZATION AS A DIAGNOSTIC-TOOL IN BREAST-CANCER

BACKGROUND. Biopsy by fine-needle aspiration has become a routine tech nique for the diagnosis of a dominant breast mass. In this study, fluo rescent in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis of interphase nuclei all owed the authors to detect genetic aberrations that are difficult to i dentify by conventional cytology. METHODS. To investigate ways of mini mizing misdiagnosis of the cytology of breast tumors, and detecting ge netic aberrations preoperatively, the authors performed FISH with spec imens obtained by fine-needle aspiration biopsies of 106 primary breas t tumors (78 primary breast cancers, 2 phyllodes tumors, and 26 benign breast tumors). Numerical chromosome aberrations were investigated us ing 3-color FISH performed with (peri)centromere-specific probes for c hromosomes 1, 11, and 17. RESULTS. Sufficient materials for FISH analy sis were obtained with aspiration biopsy from 98 of the 106 breast tum ors (93.4%). None of the benign tumors nor phyllodes tumors showed evi dence of aneusomy for any of the 3 chromosomes. However, 71 of the 74 breast cancers (95.9%) for which sufficient material was available dem onstrated aneusomy of at least 1 of the 3 chromosomes tested. The FISH analysis also suggested a possible correlation between aneusomy of ch romosome 17 and metastasis to regional lymph nodes (chi-square test = 7.78; P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS. FISH analysis of fine-needle aspiration biopsies can be a practical and useful method for the preoperative dia gnosis of breast carcinoma. (C) 1996 American Cancer Society.