A morphometric study of vascularization in uterine cervix cancers.

The stromal, parenchymal, and vascular cellular constituents were identified and their relative proportion determined in biopsy specimens derived from untreated uterine cervix carcinomas. In the stroma of the tumors that eventually responded well to radiation treatment resulting in a prolonged survival of the patients, the proportion of vascular cells was increased in comparison to the cases that were associated with a poor patient survival. The observations were interpreted in terms of the radiobiological oxygen effect reflecting the radiosensitivity variation of cells in tumor areas vascularized to varying extent. It was concluded that the determination of a tumor vascularity index as a routine parameter would be of a great prognostic value and would contribute to the characterization of individual tumors, leading to improved therapeutic efficiency.