Flow Cytometric Analysis of DNA patterns in Carcinoma of the Uterine Cervix

Eum, Sang Tag; Park, Chang Soo; Kang, Sun Young; Bae, Duk Soo; Lee, Je Ho

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Flow cytometric deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) content analysis has been shown to be of prognostic importance in some cancers. In this study, DNA patterns obtained by flow cytometry in patients with cervical cancer have been shown to be related to a prognostic importance in cervical carcinoma.
METHODS
AND MATERIALS: We retrospectively reviewed 59 cervical cancer patients who admitted to the department of obstetrics and gynecology, Samsung Medical Center firom January 1995 to May 1997.
RESULTS
A total of 59 archival paraffin-embedded blocks were proc 42.4 percent were found to be DNA content aneuploid (DNA-A) and 57.6 percent DNA content diploid (DNA-D). The S-phase fraction was significantly increased with stage. The incidences of aneuploid and relative DNA index were not significantly increased with the stage(P=0.280) and age of patients(P=0.088). The results had no significant differences between the squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma, and no relationship between the groups with keratinizing cell type and nonkeratinizing type(P=0.409). The DNA ploidy patterns were not significantly correlated with metastasis to lymph node(P=0.179), tumor size(P=0.109), invasion depth(P=0.361) and recurrent group(P=0.285). High S-phase fraction had a tendency to correlate with the invasion depth(P=0,011), size(P=0.027), lymph node metastasis(P=0.039) and recurence(P=0.099) of cervical cancer.
CONCLUSION
Flow cytometric DNA content analysis is being used more frequently in the management of different malignant tumors. Our study shows that DNA content analysis may not serve as an important biological indicator in determining the prognosis in cervical carcinoma, but High S-phase fraction has been connected with more aggressive tumors.