Prognosis of ovarian carcinomas: prediction by histoquantitative methods.

Prediction of prognosis of ovarian carcinomas by morphometric, histopathological and clinical indices was estimated in 105 tumours. Morphometric parameters included mitotic activity index, volume-corrected mitotic index (M/V index), volume fraction of neoplastic epithelium, nuclear area, nuclear perimeter, shortest and longest nuclear axis and form factor of nucleus. Cox's multivariate regression model showed that the clinical stage was the best predictor of prognosis followed by the M/V index, which expresses the mitotic activity as the number of mitotic figures per square millimeter of neoplastic epithelium in the microscope field. In all tumour subgroups studied the M/V index was the best prognostic factor and for stage I tumours it was the only parameter selected by the Cox's model as a significant and independent prognostic predictor. We conclude that the M/V index can be used as a significant prognostic factor in ovarian carcinomas.