In prostate tissues, the majority of early stage, low-grade prostate cancers are diploid, while advanced cancers are more often tetraploid and/or aneuploid. There is an association between aneuploidy and the emergence of hormone resistance in prostate cancer in some studies. Anywhere between 45-70% of breast cancers are aneuploid, and DNA ploidy has been shown to correlate with tumor size, proliferation index and steroid hormone receptor status, and is an independent predictor of disease-free and overall survival in multivariate analysis in some studies. DNA abnormalities are also very common in colorectal and ovarian cancers (60-70% in most series); results from both retrospective and prospective series of patients with ovarian cancer have unequivocally demonstrated the importance of DNA ploidy in predicting clinical outcome at all stages of the disease.

Veripath OncoDiagnostics offers DNA ploidy analysis on routine paraffin embedded material as a standard component of all cancer panels. In addition to surgical resections, this laboratory has extensive experience in evaluating cancer-related biomarkers such as DNA ploidy in needle core biopsies, which facilitates preoperative risk stratification. Currently, we are using an automated image analysis system to quantitatively score DNA ploidy. Ploidy analysis using image analysis provides more reliable ploidy results due to direct visualization and selection of cancer cells. For more information contact Dr Raheela Ashfaq at Veripath OncoDiagnostics at 214.645.7053 or Raheela.Ashfaq@UTSouthwestern.edu.

Selected references:

1. Chapman MA et al. Five-year prospective study of tumor DNA ploidy and colorectal cancer survival. Cancer 76:383; 1995

2. Dettmar P et al. Prognostic impact of proliferation associated factors MIB-1 and S-phase in node-negative breast cancer. Br J Cancer 75:1525; 1997

3. Dyszkiewicz W et al. Prognostic significance of DNA ploidy in squamous cell lung carcinoma is it really worth it? Ann Thorac Surg 70:1629; 2000

4. Gajewski WH et al. Prognostic significance of DNA content in epithelial ovarian cancer. Gynecol Oncol 53:5; 1994

5. Ross JS et al. Prediction of pathologic stage and postprostatectomy disease recurrence by DNA ploidy analysis of initial needle biopsy specimens of prostate cancer. Cancer 74:2811; 1994

6. Silvestrini R. Relevance of DNA ploidy as a prognostic instrument for solid tumors. Ann Oncol 11:259; 2000

Micrometastasis Analysis
Androgen Receptor
APC
B-Catenin
BCL-2
Bax
DNA Ploidy
CD9
CD34
CD44
CD44v6
CD117
c-Myc
COX-2
CTC New
Cyclin DI
Cyclin E
E-caderin
EGFR
EGFR PharmDx
ER/PR
FHIT
KAI-1
K-RAS
GST
hMLH-1
hMSH-2
Her-2/neu
Her 2/neu by FISH
Metallothionein
MIB-1
1p/19q by FISH
P16
P21
P27
P53
P57
p-Glyoprotein
p-Her2/neu
PTEN
SMAD-4
Thymidylate Synthase
uPA/PAI-1
VEGF
UroVysion by FISH