Measurement of chemopreventive efficacy in skin biopsies

OBJECTIVE: To explore methods suitable for quantitative assessment of the e fficacy of chemopreventive intervention. STUDY DESIGN: High-resolution imagery of nuclei from the suprabasal and bas al cell layers of sun-damaged skin were recorded. There were 10 cases. A sh ave biopsy was taken from an area of clearly evident solar keratosis before and after treatment with 2-difluoromethyl-dl-ornithine (DFMO) and from the colateral forearm, treated with a placebo. A number of karyometric variabl es were computed and combined to derive marker features that provided a num eric measure of the degree of nuclear deviation from normal. RESULTS: DFMO treatment was effective overall in reducing the degree of nuc lear abnormality seen in the biopsies; in 8 of the 10 cases there was a sig nificant improvement. The placebo-treated arm did not show a statistically different abnormality from the untreated arm. CONCLUSION: Karyometric analysis can provide numeric measures that allow do cumentation of statistically significant regression of actinic keratotic le sions following treatment with DFMO.