The Relationship of AgNORs to the Survival Rate of Patients with Invasive

ABSTRACT

Nucleolar organizer regions(NORs) are argyrophilic and have a loops of DNA that tran scribes to ribosomal RNA by RNA Polymerase I and are involved in formation of nucleolus. They are used in measuring proliferative activity of cells. Mean AgNORs count is increased or large and NORs are irregular in shape in malignant tumors. To examine the relationship of AgNORs to the survival rate of the patients with invasive colorectal adenocarcinoma, we counted mean AgNORs in 200 tumor cells and mean AgNORs#(mean AgNORs in counting AgNORs of the upper 40 nuclei after sorting AgNORs counts of 200 cell nuclei in descending order) after AgNOR staining using 45 cases of formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue surgically excised at Kang-Dong Sacred heart hospital. The survival rates were not related to age, sex, locations, differentiation, mAgNORs and mAgNORs# except Dukes'stages. There were only statistical significances in AgNORs# between high and low age group(p=0.0001), and between colon and rectum(p=0.005). But it is known that there could be different results according to staining time, fixation and preservation of tissues, counting methods in measuring AgNORs. There might be clinical usefulness of AgNOR if more cases are examined together with better tissue processing and staining methods.