Sn. Huddart et al., RETROSPECTIVE STUDY OF PROGNOSTIC VALUE OF DNA-PLOIDY AND PROLIFERATIVE ACTIVITY IN NEUROBLASTOMA, Journal of Clinical Pathology, 46(12), 1993, pp. 1101-1104
Aim-To assess the prognostic value of age and stage at diagnosis, site
of primary tumour, cell ploidy and N-myc copy number in children with
neuroblastoma. Methods-Flow cytometry was used to determine the cellu
lar DNA content of paraffin wax embedded archival material from 69 cas
es of neuroblastoma and was successful in 52. Results-The age, stage,
and survival distribution of the sampled cases was not significantly d
ifferent from that in a larger population based series. There were sev
en diploid (''non-aneuploid'') and 45 aneuploid (including two tetrapl
oid and four triploid) tumours. The 10 year survival was significantly
better for cases of aneuploid rather than diploid tumours (p < 0.05).
An important new finding was that 10 year survival was also significa
ntly better for tumours with a low percentage of cells in S phase (p <
0.03). Conclusion-The percentage of cells in S phase, a measure of th
e proliferative activity of the tumour, correlated with prognosis in n
euroblastoma. This should be measured with other biological features o
f the disease, such as N-myc copy number, when prognostic indicators a
re being assessed.