Se. Davidson et al., A COMPARISON OF 4 METHODS FOR ASSESSING TUMOR VASCULARITY IN CARCINOMA OF THE CERVIX, International journal of oncology, 5(3), 1994, pp. 639-645
A comparison was made of four methods for assessing tumour vascularity
in carcinoma of the cervix. Formalin fixed tumour sections were stain
ed with Masson's trichrome and measurements were made of the percentag
e of tumour blood vessels, vascular density (i.e. the proportion of bl
ood vessels in the stroma) and inter-capillary distance (ICD). ICD was
also obtained on anti-Factor VIII stained sections. The assessment of
tumour vascularity was shown to be operator-dependent. For all the me
thods examined, statistically significant differences were seen betwee
n the values obtained by two people independently scoring the same sec
tions. Nevertheless, weak correlations were seen between the different
scorers for all the methods with measurements of ICD giving the stron
gest correlations. Either weak or no correlations were seen between th
e various methods used for assessing the tumour vasculature. An evalua
tion was made of the ability of the various methods to predict patient
outcome for patients a minimum of two years post treatment with radio
therapy alone. Only measurements of the percentage of tumour blood ves
sels were shown to correlate with patient outcome. These data highligh
t the importance of having a single individual obtain measurements of
tumour vascularity and suggest that the method chosen to determine vas
cularity may influence the results obtained.