Deoxyribonucleic acid ploidy status as no basis for pathologic stage prediction in clinically resectable prostate cancer.

OBJECTIVES

Assessment of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) ploidy status of a tumor as a means for predicting pathologic stages in prostate cancer.

METHODS

DNA ploidy of each focus of a cancer in 70 radical prostatectomy specimens was determined by nuclear image analysis. DNA ploidy was compared with the pathologic features of tumors.

RESULTS

One hundred three individual cancers in 70 patients were used for DNA ploidy analysis. Of these, 39 (38%) were diploid and 64 (62%), nondiploid. DNA ploidy was weakly correlated with increase in tumor volume (P = 0.049) but not tumor grade. The relationship between DNA content and extraprostatic spread was not statistically significant. Increase in tumor volume and grade promoted extraprostatic spread more than nondiploidy, as shown by multivariate analysis.

CONCLUSIONS

The incidence of a nondiploid cell population in a tumor focus in prostate cancer is essentially the same, at least for Americans and Japanese. DNA ploidy of a tumor cannot serve as a means of pathologic stage prediction in clinically resectable prostate cancers, contrary to many previous studies. Thus, DNA content analysis would be of no use for deciding on the treatment strategy of prostate cancer.