Nuclear morphometric analysis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma

Nuclear morphometric data on resin-embedded sections have been utilized to classify 50 cases of non Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and to compare with morphological classification. Nuclear morphometric parameters studied were maximum diameter (Dmax), area, perimeter, form factor (FF) and nuclear contour index (NCI). The first three are determinants of the size, and the latter two indicate the shape of nuclei. Based on Dmax, small (4.5-5.5 microns), intermediate (5.5-7.0 microns) and large (7.0-12.0 microns) cell lymphomas were identified, which correlate with the low, intermediate and high grade lymphomas respectively of the Working Formulation. Determination of form factor further helped to subclassify these cases into lymphomas of B cell other than of follicular centre cell origin (FF = 0.7-1.0), follicular centre cell lymphomas (FF = 0.55-0.75) and T-cell lymphomas (FF less than 0.55). Pleomorphism factor is an objective assessment of the degree of morphological pleomorphism and is generally proportional to the grade of malignancy.