[Prognostic significance of flow cytophotometric studies in ovarian cancer]

Prognostic significance of DNA content and of distribution of cell cycle phases in ovarian carcinomas (stage III and IV) were investigated using flow cytometry. From 37 tumors 15 had DNA indices less than 2.5 and 22 had DNA indices greater than or equal to 2.5 (diploid = 2). Patients with diploid or near diploid tumors had significantly longer survival times than those with aneuploid tumors (DNA indices greater than 2.5) (log-rank test, p = 0.009, rank-sum test, p = 0.011). Patients whose tumors showed a high proportion of S/G2/M-phase cells (greater than 17%) had shorter survival times than those with tumors with a lower proportion of S/G2/M-phase cells (log-rank test p = 0.009, rank-sum test p = 0.022). The median length of follow-up of the patients was 4 years. Thus, our experiments have shown that measurements of DNA ploidy and proliferative activity using flow cytometry are important prognostic indicators for patients with ovarian carcinomas. In the future these factors might play an important role for the prognosis of patients with ovarian carcinomas. In addition, there exists a tendency for patients with in vitro resistant tumors to die earlier than those with sensitive tumors, but these results were not significant (log-rank test, p = 0.16; rank-sum test, p = 0.059).