[Cytospectrophotometric study of DNA content in dysplasia and breast cancer]

In displasia nuclei of the epithelial cells have diploid and in some cases also tetraploid set of chromosomes, the modal class of cells--paradiploid. In cancer there were noted poly- and heteroploidy changes in the modal class, which formed most often paratetraploid cells and more seldom--paraoctoploid ones. Comparison of intraductus cancer with invasive forms of carcinoma showed a displacement of the peak on the histogram towards greater and intermediate (within 4n and 8n) values of DNA, which was apparently associated with an increase in the number of aneuploid cells of the modal class as the tumour progressed. The average content of DNA in dysplasia was about 3n. In all forms of cancer it was significantly above (greater than 4n). Such average content of DNA and increase in the standard deviation (above 1.5) which reflects the degree of heteroplody, surve as objective indices of the onset of malignization.