Cell-Kinetic Characteristics of Human Brain Tumors

Abstract

The proliferative potential of human brain tumors was investigated, in vivo, using bromodeoxyuridine (BUDR) incorporation and flow cytometry (FCM). Patients with a variety of human brain tumors were preoperatively injected with 250 mg of BUDR intravenously. The cell cycle parameters of most of the specimen were measured within 24 h of sampling. The results show that this method is very practical, fast, and feasible for determining the cell-kinetic parameters of human brain tumors. In this study important kinetic parameters such as the duration of S-phase and the potential doubling time of each tumor were calculated in some samples. Our results show a significant difference in labelling index between meningiomas and gliomas. No difference between benign and anaplastic meningiomas was demonstrated in this limited number of cases. The correlation between the labelling index and the clinical and radiological follow-up of each patient should make the assessment of the prognostic significance of the kinetic evaluation, possible. This method could be a useful aid in the selection of new treatment schedules.

Biologic parameters that correlate with the prognosis of human gliomas

“… 32 In the present series, cases of aneuploid low‐grade astrocytomas had a shorter survival than diploid cases but, in contrast, hypodiploid anaplastic astrocytomas survived even longer than diploid anaplastic astrocytomas. Some studies consider this technique a useful tool in diagnosis 13,15,35 but, from the present study, we feel it is best used to rationalize adjuvant treatment schedules and adapt them to the cell kinetics of individual cases.…”

Edema and Malignancy in Meningiomas

“…Correlation of mitosis and necrosis with brain edema in was found in 92 % of the cases in one previous study, 37 but this correlation was not seen in other series. 40,41,42 Regarding the correlation of results of CT with the malignancy of the meningiomas, one study showed that 3 kinds of tumor-brain interfaces characterized by different difficulties in microsurgical dissection-smooth type, tran-sitional type, and invasive type-were very precisely correlated with CT images of halo-like and finger-like hypodense areas, allowing prediction of the microsurgical effort to be made in surgery for removal of meningiomas.…”

Prognostic significance of nuclear DNA content in human neuroepithelial tumors

“…These include the presence, in the measured cell suspension, of both inflammatory cells and S-phase-arrested cells (that are considered as proliferating by single DNA FCM while they actually are not) and the impossibility (with the available mathematical models) of correctly evaluating the S-phase in aneuploid cases. A reliable evaluation of tumor growth will come from analysis of in vivo bromodeoxyuridine (BUdR) administration (Gratzner, 1982;Dolbeare et al, 1983;Wilson et al, 1985;Danova et al, 19866), as indicated in rapidly progressing studies of brain tumors (Hoshino, 1985(Hoshino, , 1986(Hoshino, , 1988(Hoshino, , 1989Danova et al, 19876, 1988;Wilson et al, 1988;Riccardi et al, 1988Riccardi et al, , 1989Assietti et al, 1990).…”