DNA ploidy and S - phase fraction in the patients of chronic HCV and hepatocellular carcinomas

ABSTRACT

In this study, 400 blue Feulgen-stained nuclei were measured from each lesion using DNA image cytometry. The histopathological and cytopathological observations revealed that 52 cases had variable degrees of chronic hepatitis, 12 cases were emerging into cirrhosis; while 11 cases represented different grades of HCC. Most of cases with minimal or mild chronic hepatitis were females, while most of the males had moderate or severe chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis and HCC. DNA image analysis data helped in the histological observations. All of chronic hepatitis C and cirrhotic cases showed normal diploid and/or tetraploid histograms; while they showed increasing S-phase fractions' values of the highly diseased chronic hepatitis and cirrhotic cases. Hepatocellular carcinomas and one cirrhotic case only revealed aneuploidy [diploid and tetraploid], while one case of poorly differentiated HCC revealed multi-ploid histogram