Use of fluorescent in situ hybridization for deoxyribonucleic acid ploidy analysis of prostatic adenocarcinoma.

Fluorescent in situ hybridization using 2 chromosome specific centromere probes was evaluated as a method of ploidy analysis in touch preparations from 50 radical prostatectomy specimens. Tumors were classified as aneuploid by fluorescent in situ hybridization when nuclei had an abnormal copy number (aneusomic) for either chromosome centromere 8 or 12. Tetraploid tumors were defined as those with 4 copies (tetrasomic) of chromosome centromeres 8 and 12. The fluorescent in situ hybridization ploidy patterns were compared to the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) ploidy patterns subsequently obtained by flow cytometry on the same tissue following paraffin embedding. Concordant fluorescent in situ hybridization and flow cytometry ploidy classification was obtained in 82% of the cases (p < or = 0.0001). Of 7 aneuploid tumors 3 were identified by both methods. Trisomy 8 was detected by fluorescent in situ hybridization in 3 cases that were classified as DNA diploid (2 tumors) and DNA tetraploid (1 tumor). Conversely, flow cytometry detected aneuploidy (hypotetraploidy) in 1 tumor when the fluorescent in situ hybridization results were consistent with tetraploidy. Overall, fluorescent in situ hybridization was more sensitive in aneuploidy detection (6 of 7 cases) than flow cytometry (4 of 7). Of 19 tetraploid cases 5 had discordant fluorescent in situ hybridization and flow cytometry results. However, all 5 cases contained low levels of tetraploidy and the discrepant results were most likely due to the limits of precision of 1 or both methods. In conclusion, we demonstrated that fluorescent in situ hybridization ploidy analysis can be rapidly performed on fresh touch preparations of prostate tissue. This preliminary study demonstrates that the ploidy result determined by fluorescent in situ hybridization correlates well with that obtained by flow cytometry. More complete fluorescent in situ hybridization studies of prostate carcinoma will require additional probes for other chromosomes.