Flow cytometric DNA ploidy and S-phase fraction correlate with histopathologic indicators of tumor behavior in colorectal carcinoma

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Abstract
The clinical behavior of colorectal carcinoma is highly variable without reliable predictive biomarkers. Previous reports have shown that flow cytometric DNA analysis may provide valuable prognostic information in these tumors. This study evaluates the DNA ploidy and the S-phase fraction (SPF) on frozen samples obtained from 61 patients with colorectal carcinoma by using flow cytometry, and it correlates the data with histopathologic features known to affect disease prognosis. Tumors were classified using the World Health Organization's histologic criteria and were staged according the American Joint Committee on Cancer's classification system. Grade of the neoplasm, vascular invasion, and perineural tumor spread were evaluated in every case. Fifty-nine percent of tumors were aneuploid and showed statistically significant higher S-phase values than diploid tumors (22.5vs.11.2 percent;P CONCLUSIONS: These findings showed that flow cytometric DNA ploidy and SPF, evaluated in fresh samples, are potentially useful parameters to estimate colorectal carcinoma biopathology. Aneuploidy and high replicative neoplastic activity correlated with histopathologic features that are commonly associated with the prognosis of colorectal carcinoma, being SPF-related to disease dissemination and, therefore, an indicator of clinical relevance.