Flow cytometry of lung carcinoma: a comparison of DNA stemline and cell cycle distribution with histology.

Flow cytometry studies of the DNA distribution of 33 lung tumors were carried out. All of the carcinomas (32 cases) had aneuploid DNA modal values, ranging from 2.15c to 5.05c; in the single case of carcinoid studied, the tumor cells were diploid. DNA ploidy levels tended to be higher for epidermoid than adenocarcinoma; they were the same in lymph node metastases as in the primary tumor. Cell cycle distributions calculated from the tumor cell DNA values showed considerable variation, ranging from 9% to 58% for the S phase and from less than 1% to 29% for the G2M phase. Whether these variations have clinical significance is not known at this time.