DNA aberrations in urinary bladder cancer detected by flow cytometry and FISH: prognostic implications.

We evaluated the genetic changes in bladder cancer biopsy by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and related them to stage and grade of the tumor, ploidy (FCM) and clinical outcome, to determine a simple method to identify tumors with a poorer prognosis. Using FISH the numerical aberrations of chromosomes 1, 7, 9, 17 in tumor's imprints of 70 patients with transitional cell cancer (TCC) were determined. First of all, the data demonstrated that the sensitivity of FISH in detecting quantitative DNA aberrations exceeds FCM's sensitivity. The frequency of chromosome 1 and 9 aberrations did not show significant differences in diploid and aneuploid tumors in different stage and grade. On the contrary, the chromosome 7 and 17 aneusomy showed greater differences between pT1 and pT2-3 tumors (p<0.032 and p<0.0006, respectively) than between stage pTa and pT1. In our investigation, an increasing number of aberrations was observed in all chromosomes examined in tumors of patients who afterwards underwent cystectomy and/or had recurrent tumors. These results suggest that chromosome 7 and 17 aneusomy could be predictive of adverse outcome in a subgroup of patients with superficial tumors at presentation.

Investigation of genetic alterations associated with development and adverse outcome in patients with astrocytic tumor.

Models describing progression in the genetic derangement of glial tumors have shown chromosomal loss and gain occurring most frequently in high-grade lesions, suggesting that identification of these aberrations may be prognostically significant. In this study, Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) has been used to determine, and to confirm, loss and gain of chromosomes 1, 8, 10, 12 and 17, in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded brain biopsy tissue taken from 60 brain gliomas submitted to surgical resection or stereotactic biopsy. FISH analysis may be a valuable adjunct to histological grading. The results showed that this molecular cytogenetic technique is an important clinical and experimental tool that provides new insight on genetic alterations, confirming gain and loss of genetic material that occurs at the initiation and progression of human glioma. Our data suggests that potentially useful prognostic information may be obtained through this approach. Monosomy 10 was the most statistically significant negative predictor of patient survival, showing a significant correlation with the histological grading.