Flow cytometrical comparison of different nuclear preparation methods upon number of DNA-populations and S-phase...

In order to compare the flow cytometrically estimated DNA-parameters, histopathologically normal uterine mucosa from 250 patients was used. We compared the method of Schütte combined with those of Vindelöv or Thorntwaite in 250 and 139 cases respectively. We also compared the concomitant results when using fresh or formalin fixated material. Regarding Shütte-Thorntwaite there was no significant difference in number of DNA-populations of fresh or formalin-treated samples. However, significant differences were found regarding the number of DNA-populations when comparing Vindelöv with Schütte-Vindelöv and also between the two methods (Shütte-Thorntwaite and Schütte-Vindelöv) regarding all parameters investigated. Thus we strongly recommend that laboratories test out relevant parameters on histopathologically normal material from the organ from which later tumor material will be retrieved.