[Characteristics and problems of flow cytometric nuclear DNA content analysis in lung cancer using bronchoscopically-obtained specimens].

Flow cytometric nuclear DNA content analysis was performed on 106 bronchoscopically-obtained specimens from 67 patients with primary lung cancer. Brushing, curettage and biopsy samples in which tumor cells were identified by microscopic examination were considered suitable for analysis. The incidence of DNA aneuploidy in small cell carcinoma (77.8%) was higher than that in any other histological type of lung cancer. Intratumoral heterogeneity was found to affect the detectability of DNA aneuploidy, suggesting that care must be taken to obtain adequate samples of tumor cells and to consider intratumoral heterogeneity. These results indicate that this method can be used for nuclear DNA content analysis not only in cases of resectable lung cancer but also for unresectable lung cancers and may provide useful biological information in the clinical management of all types of lung cancer.