[The parameters of tumor cell proliferation as a prognostic factor in lymphosarcomas]

Cytophotometry of DNA was used to measure cell fractions in the S + G2 phases of the mitotic cycle in imprints of the involved lymph nodes and/or smears of the cells isolated from archival paraffin blocks of 60 patients with lymphosarcoma. Parallel studies have shown that both cell sources permit obtaining similar results (r = 0.98, p less than 0.001). The mean S + G2 values increased with the increment of the histological degree of malignancy, amounting to 1.6 +/- 0.4, 3.4 +/- 0.5 and 7.4 +/- 2.7% for patients with low, intermediate and high degrees, respectively. However, the statistically significant differences in accordance with Wilcoxon's criterion were revealed but for the second and third groups. To estimate the independent prognostic importance of the S + G2 parameter, all the patients were distributed into 2 groups. The first group included patients, in whom the magnitude of S + G2 did not surpass 3%, whereas the second one was made up of patients with the S + G2 values exceeding 3%. In the second group, the mean survival reached 13.8 +/- 4.0 months. At present 45% (9 out of 20) are still alive. In the first group, the mean survival was 25.2 +/- 3.8 months, with 70% of the patients being alive (28 out of 40). The significance of the differences is very high: p less than 0.001. Thus, the S + G2 parameter turned out to be reversely dependent on the survival of lymphosarcoma patients.