[DNA ploidy of stem cells and prognosis of ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreas].

The findings on DNA stem line ploidy of ductal adenocarcinomas of the pancreas, which have hitherto been published in the literature, are rather contradictory last but not least due to methodological problems. Thus, the DNA stem line ploidy and its prognostic significance were examined by Feulgen image cytometry on 10 microns sections of 100 paraffin-embedded radically resected ductal carcinomas of the pancreas from the records. In that process the parts of the tumour with the highest grade of malignancy were preferentially investigated. The aneuploidy rate (42%) was conspicuously low if compared with other adenocarcinomas. A highly significant positive correlation between DNA ploidy and histological grading according to Klöppel et al. could be observed, while there was only a tendency towards a positive correlation of DNA ploidy and post-surgical tumour stage. Regarding the 1-year survival rate, the DNA aneuploid tumour cases were significantly more unfavourable than the DNA peridiploid ones (p < 0.05). The prognostically decisive parameter, however, was the histological grading (p < 0.00005), which also showed the best stratification of the patient population. However, contrary to expectations the postsurgical stage of the primary tumour and the nodular state were only of low prognostic significance. The reason for that is on the one hand that the distribution over the pT-stages (in 81% pT2 tumours) is unbalanced, and on the other hand that the actual tumour cell dissemination is only insufficiently represented in the post-surgical staging.