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Retrospective study of prognostic value of DNA ploidy and proliferative activity in neuroblastoma
S N Huddart1, K R Muir, S E Parkes
1Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Pendlebury, Manchester.
Aim:
To assess the prognostic value of age and stage at diagnosis, site of primary tumour, cell ploidy and N-myc copy number in children with neuroblastoma.
Methods:
Flow cytometry was used to determine the cellular DNA content of paraffin wax embedded archival material from 69 cases of neuroblastoma and was successful in 52.
Results:
The age, stage, and survival distribution of the sampled cases was not significantly different from that in a larger population based series. There were seven diploid ("non-aneuploid") and 45 aneuploid (including two tetraploid and four triploid) tumours. The 10 year survival was significantly better for cases of aneuploid rather than diploid tumours (p < 0.05). An important new finding was that 10 year survival was also significantly better for tumours with a low percentage of cells in S phase (p < 0.03).
Conclusion:
The percentage of cells in S phase, a measure of the proliferative activity of the tumour, correlated with prognosis in neuroblastoma. This should be measured with other biological features of the disease, such as N-myc copy number, when prognostic indicators are being assessed.