NUCLEAR MORPHOMETRY IN COLORECTAL ADENOCARCINOMA - PATHOLOGICAL AND CLINICAL CORRELATIONS

Neoplastic cells nuclear karyometric value, determined in 100 colorect al cancer specimen, including both primary tumor and nodal metastases (50 cases), was correlated with pathological data and patients surviva l rates. Primary tumor modifications in nuclear area, perimeter, diame ter and shape did not result statistically significant if compared to intraparietal tumor extent and grade of differentiation although showi ng a trend towards higher values according to the degree of local infi ltration and dedifferentiation. As regards homogeneity of values of nu clear parameters modifications, less infiltrating together with well a nd moderately differentiated tumors (G2, G2) showed significantly more homogeneous diameter and, respectively, perimeter and shape values, I n lymph-node positive tumors the value of each nuclear parameter resul ted significantly higher compared with that of tumors confined to the colon. Again, nuclear area, diameter and shape resulted significantly more uniform in the lymph-node negative group. Mean nuclear shape valu es of metastatic cells were significantly lower compared to those obse rved in the corresponding primary cancer cells (p=0.009). As regards r ecurrent tumors, they showed primary cancer cells mean nuclear area, p erimeter and diameter values significantly lower compared to fatal one s. A threshold value of nuclear shape equal to 1.360 or higher was sig nificantly correlated with lymph-node involvement. Our results allow t o identify in the morphometric analysis a simple additional diagnostic tool which might be applied to conventionally processed endoscopic sa mples in order to evaluate colorectal tumor aggressivity and suitable surgical treatment.