Value of deoxyribonucleic acid ploidy and nuclear morphometry for prediction of disease progression in renal cell carcinoma.

Abstract

A retrospective study was performed on 108 patients with localized renal cell carcinoma (pT1 to 3a N0M0) to determine whether ploidy and nuclear morphometry are independent predictive factors in addition to stage and grade. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) content was analyzed by flow cytometry and nuclear morphometry characterized by 5 nuclear descriptors. A Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to identify significant prognostic factors for disease progression. A model combining tumor stage and grade, DNA ploidy and nuclear minor axis was chosen as optimal with risk of disease progression increased with increasing tumor stage and grade, DNA aneuploidy and increasing nuclear minor axis. This improved ability to predict disease progression in localized renal cell carcinoma may have important clinical use.