Morphometric analysis of nuclear features, ploidy status, and staging in rectal carcinoma

Recently, several flow cytometric studies have shown that the nuclear DNA content in colorectal carcinoma gives prognostic information which is independent of that provided by the histological characteristics of the tumour. In this study the nuclear DNA content and nuclear morphology of 39 cases of surgically resected rectal adenocarcinoma were measured in Feulgen-stained histological sections by video image analysis and 97 per cent were aneuploid. Dukes' stage correlated better with the morphometric data than did other classification systems. The extent of local spread and the growth pattern at the invasive margin of the tumour, which are of known prognostic importance, were significantly related to some nuclear features. Discriminant analysis of the nuclear morphometric data alone was highly successful in predicting these tumour characteristics. The results suggest that routine application of this technique to tumour biopsies may be of value in patient management since it provides stage-related information which cannot be obtained by conventional histopathological assessment.