[Mitotic activity of cancer cells and survival of gastric cancer patients].

An in vivo stathmokinetic method was used to analyze the mitotic activity of cancer cells from 43 gastric cancer patients. The mitotic activity was distributed between mitotic index (MI) 40.0% and MI 127.0%. The patients were classified into 3 groups; low mitotic activity (L-MA) group (MI less than 70.0%), middle mitotic activity (M-MA) group (70.0%) less than or equal to MI) 90% and high mitotic activity (H-HA) group (MI greater than 90.0%). Survival curve and average survival period were examined and compared with each of 3 mitotic activity groups. The survival curve of L-MA group was better than that of M-MA group (generalized Wilcoxon test, Z = 1.815, p less than 0.1), and the latter was significantly better than that that of H-MA group (generalized Wilcoxon test, z = 2.048, p less than 0.05). Average survival period (mean +/- S.D.) of dead patients from cancer recurrence was 24.0 months in L-MA group (n = 1), 16.1 +/- 2.4 months in M-MA group (n = 9) and 7.4 +/- 2.4 months in H-HA group (n-13). Patients with gastric cancer of high mitotic activity died earlier than patients with that of low mitotic activity in the identical histologic type, identical degree of cancer invasion and the identical stage of cancer. The results suggested that the mitotic activity of cancer cells was utilized as a new prognostic parameter of gastric cancer.