Entropy as an algorithm for the statistical description of DNA cytometric data obtained by image analysis microscopy.

In an effort to obtain an additional statistical descriptor of DNA histograms we analysed a concept from mathematical information theory, called entropy, which describes the information content of histograms irrespective of parametric or non-parametric distributions. For this study, 32 fine-needle biopsies were analysed. It seems that the entropy of the DNA histogram is an extremely useful descriptor for the separation of distributions obtained from malignant tumours when compared with non-malignant lesions or normal controls.