Prediction of metastasis of uveal melanoma: comparison of morphometric determination of nucleolar size and spectrophotometric determination of DNA.

We studied 95 cases of uveal melanoma using cytomorphometry to measure the standard deviation of nucleolar area (SD-NA) based on 200 cells per tumor and microspectrophotometry to determine the quantity of DNA in the nucleus of 100 cells per tumor. The 95 cases of uveal melanoma, in which the eye was enucleated between 1970 and 1973, were selected from the files of the REgistry of Ophthalmic Pathology. Forty-nine patients survived with a median follow-up of 15 years without evidence of metastasis at the time of the last follow-up, and 46 patients died of metastatic melanoma. Statistical analysis indicated that SD-NA was a better predictor of metastasis than DNA determination in this data set.