6th ESACP Congress, Heidelberg, April 7-11, 1999

A032
BREAST CANCER CELL NUCLEUS IMAGE ANALYSIS : STRUCTURAL CHARACTERIZATION OF CELL POPULATIONS IN ER&PR POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE TUMORS
Berzins J, Sneiders U, Freivalds T, Plegere D, Springis I, Grigalinovica R, Zeikate G, Grabovska I

Latvian Cancer Center, Institute of Experimental and Clinical Medicine of the University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia

OBJECTIVE: To perform an image analysis assessment of nuclear morphometric and structural characteristics of breast cancer cell populations in ER and PR +/- tumors. STUDY DESIGN: Cytological imprint slides of tumor specimen from 37 stage II and III breast cancer patients, were stained routinely as well as for DNA. ERC and PRC were determined by the dextran-coated charcoal assay and considered as positive when greater than 5 &10 fmol/mg protein respectively. An average of 100 cancer cells were analysed, using specially elaborated software, both in routinely and DNA stained slides, for nuclear perimeter, diameter and area, nucleolar area (in routinely stained slides) and average intensity of nuclear staining. The chromatin structure was assessed using mean diameter of chromatin grains and relative chromatin area within the nucleus. RESULTS: In DNA stained slides in ER+ tumors mean nuclear perimeter, diameter and area is smaller in comparison with ER- tumors (ER+ 246+/- 68, 73+/- 15 and 3781+/- 1693 pixels resp.; ER- 328+/- 128, 90+/- 28 and 6078+/- 4411 pixels, p<0.001); staining intensity is less in ER- tumor cell nuclei (ER+ 126+/-44; ER- 104+/-39 Arbitrary units). Chromatin structure in ER+ tumor cells is characterized by fine granularity in comparison with ER-, where the diameter of chromatin grains is bigger. The differences between PR+/PR- tumors are similar to those of ER+/ER-. CONCLUSIONS : Quantitative assessment of nucleus structure by image analysis of breast cancer cells shows close correlation with ER/PR receptor status and could be used for characterization of biological behavior of cancer cell populations.