The relative prognostic significance of nucleolar morphometry in invasive ductal breast cancer.

In a group of 65 patients with invasive ductal breast cancer with adequate follow-up for at least 5 years, the prognostic significance of nucleolar area morphometry was investigated. In general, non-survivors have larger and more pleomorphic nucleoli. A value of the standard deviation of the nucleolar area above 2.49 micron2 was almost exclusively found in non-survivors. This is the more interesting because several of these patients had a low mitotic activity index and small tumours, some of these having negative lymph nodes. Without nucleolar morphometry these patients would have been included in a favourable prognosis group. Although the sensitivity of nucleolar morphometry is low, the method can be used as an additional prognostic indicator. This is more important as nucleoli can in principle be automatically measured with digital image processing computers.