QUANTITATIVE MEASUREMENT OF DNA CONTENT IN GASTRIC-CARCINOMA - FLOW-CYTOMETRY AND VIDEO IMAGE-ANALYSIS

The DNA content of 48 gastric carcinomas from archival material was an alysed by static and flow cytometry. By image analysis 81.3% of the tu mours were aneuploid and ploidy was related to stage (P = 0.024) and l ymph node metastasis. A trend for better survival (> 12 months) was ob served in patients with diploid tumours (P = 0.058). The mean 5c excee ding rate (5cER) was significantly related to tumour stage (P < 0.05) and patient's survival (P = 0.018). In contrast, by flow cytometry onl y 43.7% of these tumours were aneuploid and these were more often asso ciated with lymph node metastasis (59.3%) but no relationship was obse rved with any other parameters or patient's survival. In this series, image analysis appears to be more sensitive than flow cytometry in det ecting small aneuploid populations. It may give additional prognostic information. It is, however, a time-consuming technique.