Apoptosis and cell proliferation correlated with tumour grade in peritoneal fluids of patients with serous ovarian cancer.

OBJECTIVE

Apoptosis and cell proliferation in peritoneal fluids of patients with ovarian serous adenocarcinoma have not been well described in cytology. To investigate the contribution of cell death to the growth of this tumour we analysed both apoptosis and cell proliferation in peritoneal fluids of patients with ovarian serous adenocarcinoma.

METHODS

We studied 40 tumours from 40 patients with ovarian serous adenocarcinoma. Twelve tumours were high grade, 13 were moderately differentiated and 15 were poorly differentiated. The detection of DNA fragments in situ using the terminal deoxyribonucleotidy transferase (TDT)-mediated dUTP-digoxigenin nick-end labelling (TUNEL) assay was applied to investigate active cell death (apoptosis), and the MIB-1 antigen was used to investigate cell proliferation.

RESULTS

The TUNEL indices were 0.29 ± 0.05, 0.79 ± 0.10 and 2.1 ± 0.90 in Grade I, Grade II and Grade III ovary carcinomas, respectively. The MIB-1 antigen labelling indices were 6.5 ± 0.09, 12.9 ± 3 and 25.8 ± 6.2, respectively, in the same order of tumour differentiation. The differences in both TUNEL and MIB-1 labelling indices were statistically significant between Grade I, Grade II and Grade III carcinomas and there was a positive correlation between the two indices (P < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

Apoptosis and cell proliferation increased as the grade of tumour increased in ovarian serous adenocarcinoma, suggesting a rapid turnover of the tumour cells in tumours of higher grade, and may play an important role in the growth and the extension of such cancer cells in the peritoneal cavity.