DIFFERENCES OF PLOIDY STATUS IN PROGRESSION OF HEAD AND NECK MELANOMAS

Thirty-three common naevi, 26 dysplastic naevi, 58 primary melanomas o f facial skin, 24 oral melanomas, 32 lymph nodes and 12 distant melano ma metastases were stained using Feulgen method to evaluate the ploidy status by image analysis GAS-200 system. Eight percent of common naev i, 22% of dysplastic naevi, 43% of facial melanomas, 65% of oral melan omas, 40% of lymph nodes with melanoma metastases and 66% of distant m elanoma metastases were classified as aneuploid. In facial melanomas t he percentage of aneuploid cases increased with Clark level. Survival time of patients was significantly shorter for aneuploid cases as comp ared to euploid ones (p <0.01).