Clinico-pathological significance of the DNA histogram patterns in cancer cell nuclei of the stomach and the esophagus.

Cytofluorometric analysis of nuclear DNA content was performed in carcinoma cells of the stomach and the esophagus and the exclusive four types of the DNA histogram patterns were established. In 33 patients with carcinoma of the stomach 7 (87.5%) out of 8 with Type I and 3 (50%) out of 6 with Type II in the DNA histogram pattern were the superficial types of carcinomas. Eighteen (81.8%) out of 22 patients with advanced gastric carcinoma belonged to Type III or IV in the DNA histogram pattern and there was only one of the superficial spreading carcinoma seen in these Types. The superficial spreading carcinoma (Stout 10) is generally reported to take more favorable clinical course than the usual advanced ones and the above data were supported that the DNA histogram pattern was associated with prognostic important property of invasive growth. In 34 patients with carcinoma of the esophagus 4 out of 7 with Type I in the DNA histogram pattern have been living more than 3 years following surgery with poor lymphatic permeation (14.3%) around the tumor. While, 6 out of 9 with Type IV had an early recurrence of cancer causing postoperative death within a year after surgery with high incidence of lymphatic permeation (77.8%) around the tumor. Thus, the DNA histogram pattern in the cytofluorometric DNA analysis of the tumor cells seems to give valuable information about the malignancy degree of the individual tumor, which is not possible to obtain only from the cytomorphological features.