Flow cytometric analysis of nuclear DNA content in the endoscopic biopsy tissues of gastric cancer.

The nuclear DNA content was measured by flow cytometry in gastric cancer patients using endoscopically biopsied tissue specimens. When the specimens were classified into diploid and aneuploid according to the DNA histogram, 56% (65/117) of the specimens were aneuploid, and advanced cancer was clearly more often aneuploid than early cancer. The frequency of aneuploidy appeared to be higher as the histologic depth of cancer was greater. Noncancerous tissues of the stomach were mostly diploid. The nuclear DNA ploidy pattern in gastric cancer cells could be analyzed by using endoscopic biopsy samples and this flow cytometric investigation would be possibly contributive to further characterization of gastric cancer in the diagnostic procedure of malignancy.