Clinical value of morphometric and DNA flow cytometric variables as independent predictors of survival in epithelial ovarian carcinoma: a 5-year follow-up study.

The aim of this follow-up study is to validate the clinical significance of quantitative morphometric and DNA flow cytometric variables as independent prognostic factors of overall survival and progression-free survival in epithelial ovarian carcinoma. Tumor samples were collected from 135 patients with epithelial ovarian carcinoma at 3 hospitals in the Netherlands. Evaluated clinico-pathologic variables were age, histologic subtype, differentiation grade, clinical stage [International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO)], presence of ascites, serum CA-125, and the completeness of debulking surgery. Morphometry and DNA flow cytometric techniques were assessed on each tumor sample to determine the mitotic activity index (MAI), volume percentage epithelium, mean nuclear area (MNA), standard deviation of MNA (SD MNA), nuclear perimeter (NP), and DNA ploidy. Univariate analysis showed that differentiation grade, FIGO stage, presence of ascites, preoperative CA-125 levels, DNA ploidy, and MAI, NP, and MNA were of significant prognostic value. After multivariate analysis (using forward Cox proportional hazard analysis), only differentiation grade and FIGO stage remained significant. From this study, we can conclude that morphometry and DNA flow cytometry are not independent prognosticators and therefore have no clinical value in predicting prognosis in ovarian carcinoma.

The latency for correcting a movement depends on the visual attribute that defines the target.

Neurons in different cortical visual areas respond to different visual attributes with different latencies. How does this affect the on-line control of our actions? We studied hand movements directed toward targets that could be distinguished from other objects by luminance, size, orientation, color, shape or texture. In some trials, the target changed places with one of the other objects at the onset of the hand's movement. We determined the latency for correcting the movement of the hand in the direction of the new target location. We show that subjects can correct their movements at short latency for all attributes, but that responses for the attributes color, form and texture (that are relevant for recognizing the object) are 50 ms slower than for the attributes luminance, orientation and size. This dichotomy corresponds to both to the distinction between magno-cellular and parvo-cellular pathways and to a dorsal-ventral distinction. The latency also differed systematically between subjects, independent of their reaction time.