Prognostic significance of ploidy level in human tumors. I. Carcinoma of the uterus.

The 5-year survival rates of 540 patients with carcinoma of the cervix and 186 with carcinoma of the corpus uteri were assessed in relation to the modal DNA values of the tumors. Patients with squamous cell cervical carcinomas had more favorable prognoses if the modes were near-triploid or hypotetraploid; however, these high-ploidy tumors included more stage III cases than did the tumors with near-diploid modes. Patients with near-diploid endometrial carcinomas has considerably more favorable prognosis than did patients with the minority of tumors at this site, who had high modes; this prognostic difference was only partly related to a higher proportion of poorly differentiated tumors in the high-ploidy group since, among the poorly differentiated tumors, individuals with near-diploid modes again had significantly better prognoses than those with high modes.