Flow cytometry DNA content and morphobiological characteristics in chronic and neoplastic human liver disease

In the search for parameters that can indicate changes in the behaviour of liver tissue from normal to chronic to neoplastic disease, DNA content by FCM (ploidy and percent of 4N cells) and morphobiological characteristics were investigated in fresh liver specimens of 16 patients with normal liver, 21 with persistent hepatitis (CPH), 23 with chronic active hepatitis (CAH), 17 with cirrhosis, and 13 with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Aneuploidy was mostly found in HCC specimens (54%), whereas the percentage of 4N peak decreased in chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis patients but increased to 11.09% in HCC samples (r = -0.02; p = 0.05). Finally, the binuclearity rate decreased gradually from normal to flogistic to HCC specimens. The 4N peak and the binuclearity rate were closely correlated in non-HCC (p = 0.0006, by T-test) but not in HCC samples. Only DNA ploidy and the binuclearity rate have been confirmed as being significantly and independently related to the histology of liver tissue by multivariate regression analysis.