Topological difference in the three-dimensional sinusoid structure between normal human liver and hepatocellular carcinoma.

A quantitative topological analysis of the three-dimensional sinusoid structure of normal human livers and well-differentiated hepatocellular carcinomas was performed with the aid of a computer system for reconstruction from serial tissue sections. The mean cycle rank (number of independent cycles) of the sinusoid network in a given volume tissue, 200 x 200 x 40 micron3 in size, was 60.6 +/- 8.8 in the normal liver and 20.8 +/- 11.9 in the hepatocellular carcinoma. Statistically, there was a significant difference between the two values (P less than 0.001), while there was no significant difference in the sinusoid volume of the same size tissue between the normal liver and hepatocellular carcinoma. It was therefore found that the sinusoid network of the hepatocellular carcinoma was more sparsely and coarsely connected in three-dimensional space than that of the normal liver.