[Flow cytometric analysis in colorectal cancer with hepatic metastases and its relationship to metastatic characteristics and prognosis].

Nuclear DNA ploidy studies were performed by flow cytometry on extracted nuclei from 65 heptic metastases from colorectal cancer. In 25 patients, both primary and metastatic lesions were available for analysis. Primary carcinomas were DNA diploid pattern in 48.1%, DNA aneuploid in 51.9%. Of 31 hepatic metastases, 11 (35.5%) metastases showed a DNA diploid pattern, and 25 (64.5%) showed a DNA aneuploid pattern. Ploidy pattern was constant between primary and metastases in 80% of tumors. No significant relationship between metastatic characteristics and DNA ploidy pattern was found. The DNA aneuploid cancers had a relatively poorer prognosis in patients with unresectable hepatic metastasis. In resected hepatic metastases from colorectal cancer, rate of hepatic recurrence with DNA diploid pattern was lower than that with DNA aneuploid pattern. Survival of patients with DNA diploid metastases (71% alive at 5 years) was significantly better than that of patients with DNA aneuploid metastases (21% alive at 5 years) (p less than 0.05). These results demonstrated that flow cytometric DNA ploidy measurements may have prognostic value for patients with hepatic metastases from colorectal cancer.