A morphometric comparison of subcellular structures between primary breast tumors and their nodal metastases

A morphometric study of subcellular structures in human primary breast tumors (of the ductal infiltrating type) and their synchronous lymph node metastases was carried out using planimetry and stereology. Each primary neoplasm was compared separately with its axillary metastatic growth in order to detect differences in the quantitative estimates of their subcellular components. A set of 24 morphometric parameters was used to quantitatively describe each neoplastic cell profile. Although some subcellular parameters showed significant differences between the cells of a primary tumor and its metastases, no parameter was found to be consistently altered in all cases. No consistent increase or decrease in the values of the affected parameters was observed in the metastases. More than being due to the expression of a biologically variant (more-or-less differentiated) metastatic phenotype, the differences in stereologic parameters detected in metastatic cells appear to reflect the existence of different functional states of the same cell type.