RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DNA-PLOIDY LEVEL, NUCLEAR SIZE, AND SURVIVAL IN LARGE-CELL LYMPHOMA

Intermediate and high grade subtypes of non-Hodgkin's large cell (LCL) and immunoblastic lymphomas exhibit considerable variability, and his tologic morphology alone may not adequately characterize those feature s important for prognosis. The relationship between nuclear morphology and survival was assessed in a series of 50 cases of large cell lymph omas in which ploidy, proliferation, and nuclear area (NA) were measur ed, Ploidy was calculated by both DNA index (DI) and DNA histogram typ e (DHT). Proliferation was calculated from the proportion of S phase ( SPF) cells present in the DHT, These four parameters were measured usi ng image cytometry of Feulgen-stained nuclei from fine-needle aspirati ons. To characterize the relationship with survival, these parameters were associated with the clinical follow-up of the patients, The resul ts show that of the 50 LCL cases, only 5 were clearly aneuploid, where as the remaining 45 were either diploid (29 cases), tetraploid/hypotet raploid (13 cases), or weakly aneuploid (hyperdiploid, 3 cases). Of th e 34 patients who died from their disease, both smaller NA and DI corr elated with longer survival in an equivalent fashion; neither conferre d greater sensitivity when combined with the other, The SPF did not co rrelate with survival. In LCL, aneuploidy seems to be a relatively unc ommon event, but when present ploidy measurement appears useful to def ine prognosis.