BACKGROUND: Epithelial ovarian cancer remains to be the leading cause of death from gynecologic malignancy. Survival is influenced primarily by FIGO stage amount of residual disease and histologic type. Unfortunately, such prognostic factors still fail to account fully for the biologic behavior of ovarian carcinomas. It is of interest therefore to identify new prognostic factors which are more objective, quantifiable and reproducible. DNA ploidy has been shown to be an independent prognostic factor in epithelial ovarian malignancies.
OBJECTIVE: The general objective of the study was to determine the ploidy characteristics of epithelial tumors of ovary. The specific objectives were to determine the association of age and aneuploidy, the association of tumor size and aneuploidy and the association of stage and aneuploidy.
METHODS: Patients who underwent surgical staging and/or tumor debulking for ovarian cancer with final histopathologic results of epithelial ovarian carcinoma were included in the study. Exclusion criteria included previous treatment with chemotheraphy or radiotherapy and previous or concomitant malignant diseases. DNA ploidy was determined using flow cytometry of paraffin embedded blocks.
RESULTS: DNA ploidy was obtained in 109 paraffin-embedded blocks of epithelial cancers of the ovary. Aneuploidy was establish in 14 of the total 109 samples (12.8%) as follows: 2 from 24 mucinous cystadenocarcinoma (14.2%), 2 from 24 mucinous tumor of low malignant potential (14.2%), 5 from 29 serious cystadenocarcinoma (17%), 5 from 30 endometriod carcinoma (16%).
CONCLUSION: The prevalence of aneuploidy in epithelial ovarian cancer is 12.8% and aneuploidy is higher for serous adecarcinoma and endometriod adenocarcinoma compared to mucinous tumors of low malignant potential and mucinous cystadenocarcinoma.