B. Weyn et al., Value of morphometry, texture analysis, densitometry, and histometry in the differential diagnosis and prognosis of malignant mesothelioma, J PATHOLOGY, 189(4), 1999, pp. 581-589
Citations number
27
Categorie Soggetti
Research/Laboratory Medicine & Medical Tecnology","Medical Research Diagnosis & Treatment
Malignant mesothelioma is a tumour with increasing incidence due to widespr
ead use of its causative agent, asbestos, in the past decades, The poor sur
vival necessitates a correct differentiation from other lesions at the same
site, such as hyperplastic mesothelium and carcinomas metastatic to pleura
or peritoneum, Since genetic and immunohistochemical markers are not absol
utely differentiating, the diagnosis is based on the histology complemented
with (immuno)histochemistry. However, as the tumour presents itself in num
erous heterogeneous histological forms, visual evaluation is extremely diff
icult, In order to evaluate the prognostic and diagnostic performance of sy
ntactic structure analysis (SSA), chromatin texture analysis, densitometry,
and morphometry, an automated KNN-classification system has been used to c
ompare Feulgen-stained tissue sections of hyperplastic mesothelium, maligna
nt mesothelioma, and pulmonary adenocarcinoma, In addition, we also studied
most discriminative aspects in the:differentiation, typing, and prediction
of survival. The results indicate that for the diagnosis of malignant meso
thelioma, chromatin texture parameters outperform SSA, densitometry, and mo
rphometry (recognition score = 96.8 per cent), Most discriminative paramete
rs highlight spatial patterns of the chromatin distribution that are hard t
o appraise visually and directly show the benefits of a quantitative approa
ch. Typing of the tumour is best described by SSA parameters, relating to t
he spatial arrangement of the cells in the tissue (recognition score (82.9
per cent). In survival time classifications, chromatin texture yields the h
ighest recognition score (82.9 per cent), although accurate estimations are
unreliable due to a large degree of misclassification. Copyright (C) 1999
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.