[Malignancy in gastric carcinoma, with special reference to the DNA ploidy and proliferative activity]

Analysis of DNA ploidy patterns was performed on 129 primary gastric cancers and the results correlated with histologic findings and in vivo bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) labeling. Forty-nine cases were diploid (38%) and 80 cases were aneuploid. There was no correlation between DNA ploidy and histologic type. In aneuploid cancers, incidence of lymphatic invasion, lymph node metastasis and rate of advanced cases were significantly higher than those in diploid tumors. During the follow-up period of 5-10 years, 23 of the 40 patients (55%) with aneuploid tumors died of disease within 3-120 months. Only 13 of the 36 patients (36%) with diploid tumors died of disease. The BrdU labeling indices (BrdU LI) were from 2.8% to 26.7%, with a mean of 10.4%. There was no correlation between BrdU LI and histologic type or stage. The mean BrdU LI of early cancers was 8.1%, of advanced cancers, 11.9%. BrdU LI of cancers with lymphatic invasion or lymph node metastasis was higher than those without them. The mean BrdU LI of diploid cancer was 6.0%, of aneuploid cancers, 11.9%. There was a good correlation between BrdU labeling indices and DNA ploidy patterns. These results indicate that determination of DNA ploidy patterns and growth fractions by BrdU labeling may be useful in the conjecture of prognosis of the patient and in the selection of patients from various modalities.