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Karyometry of the Colonic Mucosa

¹ Arizona Cancer Center and ² Departments of Surgery, ³ Pathology, and ⁴ Medicine, College of Medicine; ⁵ College of Public Health; and ⁶ College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona; ⁷ Southern Arizona Veterans Affairs Health Care System, Tucson, Arizona; and ⁸ Bioimaging and Informatics, Institute of Pathology, Queen's University, Belfast, United Kingdom

Requests for reprints: David S. Alberts, Arizona Cancer Center, College of Medicine, University of Arizona, 1515 North Campbell Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85724-5024. Phone: 520-626-7685; Fax: 520-626-2445. E-mail: dalberts{at}azcc.arizona.edu

Objective: The study summarizes results of karyometric measurements in epithelial cells of the colorectal mucosa to document evidence of a field effect of preneoplastic development among patients with colorectal adenocarcinoma or adenoma.

Methods: Karyometric analyses were done on high-resolution images of histologic sections from 48 patients with colorectal adenocarcinomas and 44 patients with adenomas and on images from matching normal-appearing mucosa directly adjacent to such lesions, at a 1-cm and 10-cm distance from the lesions or from the rectal mucosa of adenoma patients, as well as from 24 healthy normal controls with no family history of colonic disease.

Results: The nuclei recorded in the histologically normal-appearing mucosa of patients with either colorectal adenoma or adenocarcinoma exhibited differences in karyometric features in comparison with nuclei recorded in rectal mucosa from patients who were free of a colonic lesion. These differences were expressed to the same extent in tissue adjacent to the lesions and in normal-appearing tissue as distant as the rectum.

Conclusions: The nuclear chromatin pattern may serve as an integrating biomarker for a preneoplastic development. The field effect might provide an end point in chemopreventive intervention trials. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2007;16(12):2704–16)