A recurrent chromosome 4 marker in primary squamous cell lung cancer.

A sample of eight primary lung tumors histologically identified as squamous cell type carcinomas (SQC) were cytogenetically analyzed after a short-term (7 days) culture. Several numerical and structural abnormalities were observed. As G-banding analysis is unable to fully characterize complex marker chromosomes, we applied the fluorescence chromosome painting technique to identify one as a marker derived from a chromosome 4 that has not been described until now. We found it in half of the analyzed cases.