Prognostic relevance of ploidy and proliferative activity of renal cell carcinoma.

In 112 patients with renal cell carcinoma, the ploidy, DNA heterogeneity and the phases of the cell cycle occurring in the tumors were determined by means of single-cell DNA cytophotometry, in order to establish further prognostic factors in addition to the ones known so far (stage/grade). Patients with aneuploid tumors or tumors with more than one DNA frequency peak were found to have lymph node metastases intraoperatively and died earlier than patients with diploid tumors. Patients who had tumors with low proliferative activity survived longer than patients with highly proliferative tumor activity (p = 0.001).