DNA grading of oral squamous carcinomas. A preliminary report

The prognostic validity of the DNA-malignancy-grade (DNA-MG), ranging on a continuous scale from 0.00 to 3.00 was tested in a preliminary study on 7 patients with oral squamous cell carcinomas. Monolayer smears were prepared after a cell separation procedure from paraffin-embedded surgical tumor specimens. Feulgen staining was performed automatically in a modified Shandon staining machine. A TV image analysis system with an automatic microscope (TAS plus, Leitz, FRG) was used for DNA measurements. The DNA-MG revealed a strong correlation with the patients prognosis. 3 patients who died after having a tumor relapse (mean survival = 10 months) had DNA grades greater than 1.40, whereas patients who survived without having a tumor relapse (mean survival = 53 months) revealed DNA grades below 1.00. Additionally, the DNA-malignancy-grade was closely correlated with the histopathologic malignancy grades.