Adrenal cortical carcinoma: flow cytometric study of 22 cases, an ECOG study.

Flow cytometric studies of archival material from 22 adrenal carcinomas demonstrated aneuploidy in 21 of 22 cases. Heterogeneity of nuclear DNA was found in 14 of the 22 cases. Eight of these showed distinct aneuploid and diploid populations, and 6 showed multiple aneuploid cell lines. The heterogeneity was detected because numerous paraffin-embedded samples of each tumor could be examined. No correlation was found between either aneuploidy or heterogeneous DNA content and patient survival, response to therapy, or hormone secretion.