Analysis of the DNA content in the progression of recurrent and metastatic melanomas

Ploidy status and ploidy minted parameters of 18 primary melanomas, 32 recurrences and 18 lymphatic metastases were investigated applying CAS200 image analyzer All the tumours investigated were either suspicious for aneuploidy (Auer III) or clearly aneuploid (Auer IV). Primary melanomas differed from recurrent tumours concerning the percentage of aneuploid cells between 4c and 8c and 5c ER. Comparison of cutaneous tumors with lymphatic metastases showed a significant difference concerning the percentage of aneuploid cells between 2c and 4c. An already high aneuploidy rate in primary rumours suggests that recurrent and metastatic clones of cells are present in early stages and that aneuploidy status in primary melanomas could be regarded as one of the risk factors of recurrences and metastases.