Identification and quantitation of tumour cells in cell suspensions: a comparison of cytology and flow cytometry

Abstract

FLOW-CYTOMETRIC MEASUREMENTS of cell DNA content or narrow-angle light scatter (NLS) can provide a basis for discriminating neoplastic from non-neoplastic cells by identifying differences in DNA content and cell size. Flow-cytometric analyses of many human neoplasms have been previously reported (Barlogie et at., 977, 1978) showing aneuploidy in 80-90% of non-lymphoid solid tumours and 40- 60% of non-Hodgkin's lymphomas. In leukaemias, and multiple myelomas with and aneuploid tumour clone, the percentage of neoplastic cells in marrow or blood determined by DNA content correlates well with quantitation based on histologic smears (Barlogie et al., 1977; Latreille et al., 1980; Andreeff et al., 1980) but such a comparison has not been made on cell suspensions from solid tumours.