DNA-ploidy, morphometric-stereological and P-glycoprotein study of superficial bladder carcinomas

We carried out a DNA-ploidy, morphometric-stereologic and P-glycoprotein study on 40 newly diagnosed superficial bladder cancer patients (G1-G2), correlating the results with histological grade and clinical outcome. Variations in the number of patients who present recurrences, progression or remain tumor-free during the whole follow-up period (at least 5 years) were not significant when related to nuclear size, proliferative diploid index, presence of aneuploidy and expression of P-glycoprotein. It is striking how the majority of disease-free subjects showed a proliferative diploid index higher than 10%. Moreover, 3 of them presented an aneuploid cell population. In our study, only histological grade showed a significant discriminatory level in terms of progression versus no progression in patients with superficial bladder cancer.