Morphometry of gastric carcinoma: its association with patient survival, tumour stage, and DNA ploidy.

Morphometric image analysis of nuclear features was performed on tissue from 46 patients who had had curative resections for gastric cancer. Clinical, pathological, flow cytometric, and follow-up data were available for these patients, which were drawn from a larger, previously reported series. The morphometric data were compared with patient survival, clinico-pathological status, and DNA ploidy. Univariate survival analysis revealed that morphometric parameters were not significantly related to survival, but examination of clinico-pathological data showed lymph node involvement, involvement of the resection margin, and lymphatic invasion to be significantly associated (P < 0.01) with patient prognosis. Multivariate survival analysis using the Cox model found only lymph node and resection margin involvement to be independently related to survival. Comparison of morphometric results with the clinico-pathological parameters showed various features, relating to nuclear size, and its variation to be significantly associated (P < 0.01) with the presence of lymphatic invasion, resection margin involvement, and tumour pattern (intestinal/diffuse). A comparison of morphometry with flow cytometric analysis in these cases showed that nuclear size was not significantly related to either DNA aneuploidy or the DNA proliferative index.