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Biomedical subjects

H E Dytch

Publications and source records attributed to H E Dytch.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

Cytomorphologic, cytometric and histomorphologic observations after laser therapy for cervical lesions.

To analyze the healing process after laser therapy for cervical lesions, the clinical, cytologic, histologic and colposcopic features in 109 cases were studied chronologically. The healing process of the cervical epithelium usually began from both the squamous and columnar epithelial borders, starting around the 10th day after laser therapy; the process covered the whole tissue defect with multilayered epithelium within seven weeks. Inflammatory changes also usually abated within that time. Cytomorphologically, laser therapy resulted in the occurrence of (mostly degenerated) "fiber-type" and orangeophilic cells in smears taken during the first two weeks after treatment. Tissue repair cells were seen in smears collected from the first posttherapy day through the fourth week after laser therapy. Using computer-assisted image cytometry, the reparative cells in samples taken shortly after treatment (roughly, the first to fifth days) exhibited more hyperchromatic (3-4N) nuclei than did those in later samples; however, the mean DNA content of the early reparative cells was generally concentrated around that of the 2N reference cells. These findings suggest that follow-up, including cytologic and colposcopic examination, for the early detection of residual or recurrent lesions should start in the eighth week and continue periodically for at least one year.

Biopsy↗
PubMed1992

Comparison of estrogen receptor immunocytochemical assay in frozen and paraffin sections.

Frozen and paraffin sections of 11 breast carcinomas were stained for estrogen receptors (ER) using the same rat monoclonal primary antibody, D75P3, as the marker and alkaline phosphatase as the chromogen-linking enzyme. The results of this staining process were assessed visually and with the microTICAS image analysis system to determine the degree of correlation between frozen and paraffin-embedded tissue. In all specimens, some fraction of the nuclei stained positively. This included two specimens selected for their biochemically negative assay; one of them stained strongly positively with D75P3. The results of quantitative analysis support the visually apparent correlation between the two types of samples in terms of both overall staining pattern and intensity of nuclear staining. Although the conclusions of this pilot study are limited because of the small number of cases, this method of staining establishes the feasibility of representative ER determination in archival paraffin-processed material. The additional information provided by this method is potentially useful in stratifying patients in prospective studies on the basis of the efficacy of hormonal therapy in biochemically ER positive breast tumors.

Antibodies, Monoclonal↗
PubMed1991

Correlation between visual clues, objective architectural features, and interobserver agreement in prostate cancer.

Three pathologists evaluated a number of designated architectural features to assign grades to 41 cases of well- to moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma, and their opinions were compared. The consensus opinion was obtained and evaluated against objective measurements of glandular architecture that were obtained by morphometric techniques. The observers agreed on gland size, gland uniformity, and the number of glands per field in only 49%, 31%, and 39% of cases, respectively. There were significant differences in the Gleason grades assigned by observers. Paired matching of individual Gleason grades showed agreement among observers in 44% (18 of 41), 56% (23 of 41), and 75% (31 of 41) of cases, respectively. This level of interobserver disagreement occurred even though cases with predominant patterns were selected carefully and those with variable patterns were excluded. A direct relationship appears to exist between increasing Gleason grade and increasing glandular variability, and there is an inverse relationship between Gleason grade, gland lumen area, and the number of glandular nuclei, as assessed by a group of pathologists.

Humans↗
PubMed1991

Value of the cribriformity factor in grading prostatic carcinoma.

Architectural and histometric features for the objective grading of prostate adenocarcinoma in histologic specimens were analyzed in five cases each of Gleason primary grades 2, 3A, 3B, 3C, 4A and 4B, selected as "typical" for the histopathologic images. Tissue sections from the selected cases were stained by the Feulgen method. Fifteen fields for each grade, for a total of 4,430 glands, were digitized by a video-based microphotometer at low resolution (pixel spacing of 2 microns). Outer and inner outlines of the glandular epithelium were traced manually using a mouse. For each field the number of glands, the gland area, the lumen area, the area of the glandular epithelium and the cribriformity factor were computed. The gland area and its variance proved to be useful indicators for lower-grade lesions, whereas the variance of cribriformity resulted in an excellent grading indicator in the Gleason 3-4 range when cribriform glands were present.

Adenocarcinoma↗
PubMed1991

Karyometric features in nuclei near colonic adenocarcinoma. Statistical analysis.

The normal mucosa adjacent to colonic adenocarcinoma (marginal or transitional mucosa) has been shown to have subtle alterations of architecture, surface glycoproteins and proliferative activity. To evaluate possible changes in nuclear configurations in this marginal mucosa, a large set of cytometric features was evaluated using a computer-assisted video analysis system. Preliminary statistical analysis of the measurements identified six nuclear features useful for discriminating marginal mucosa nuclei from normal (control) mucosa nuclei: total optical density (OD), nuclear area, chromatin texture (from gray value cooccurrence matrix), chromatin coarseness, average OD of nuclear staining and peripheral tendency of the chromatin in the nucleus. An analysis of variance revealed that both patient-to-patient and gland-to-gland variation would limit the usefulness of any one feature as a screening tool. As a group, however, these six features should be investigated further as markers of preneoplastic changes in histologically normal-appearing mucosa.

Adenocarcinoma↗
PubMed1991

Histometric features for the grading of prostatic carcinoma.

Histometric features for the objective grading of prostatic adenocarcinoma in histologic specimens were analyzed in five cases each of well, moderately and poorly differentiated lesions. Tissue sections from the selected cases were stained by the Feulgen method and digitized by a video-based microphotometer. Twenty total fields were recorded for each grade: ten at high resolution (an image sampling of 0.5 micron per pixel) and ten at low resolution (0.8 micron per pixel), with two fields per case recorded at each resolution. The images were segmented by an automated expert system-guided scene segmentation procedure. The performance of that procedure was measured by comparing the automated counts of nuclei in the segmented fields to the visual counts made by a pathologist in the same fields. For well, moderately and poorly differentiated cases, respectively, the nuclear counts made by the expert system at high resolution were 2.7%, 4.2% and 4.7% higher than the visual counts (as estimated from a total of 6,628 nuclei), but 1.2%, 2.5% and 1.1% lower at low resolution (10,329 nuclei). High-resolution features and tissue textural features were computed for each case. The high-resolution features showed good separation between the three groups of cases. The tissue textural features showed consistent separation between well and moderately differentiated cases. The relaxation of the spatial resolution (to 0.8 micron/pixel spacing) did not affect the selection of features, but led to less separation between the data from different grades. In conclusion, the automated system performed satisfactorily in distinguishing sections of prostatic tumors of varying degrees of differentiation.

Adenocarcinoma↗
PubMed1990

Cytophotometric DNA measurements in medullary thyroid carcinoma.

The prognostic significance of objectively measured karyometric variables (ploidy pattern, nuclear roundness, area, elongation, chromatin texture, and nearest nucleus distance) was investigated in relation to clinical (stage and type of disease) and morphologic (histologic patterns) variables in 27 patients with the diagnosis of medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC). The DNA and karyometric measurements of Feulgen-stained nuclei were made with a video cytometry system. The five-year and ten-year adjusted survival rates were 74.4 +/- 10.1% and 59.5 +/- 15.6%, respectively. Cox's survival analysis for mortality showed that only stage, age, sex, and 5N exceeding rate had predictive value (overall P = 0.0012) in decreasing order. Patients with the best prognosis were young females with clinical Stage I disease and low 5N exceeding rate tumors. When karyometric and histometric variables were considered by themselves survival correlates with the standard deviation (SD) of the nearest nuclear distance and nuclear elongation; that is, patients with crowded, high cellularity tumors and elongated cells had the worst prognosis. In univariate analyses only clinical stage correlated with adjusted survival rate. Multivariate survival analysis for morbidity showed that patients in Stages greater than or equal to II and high SD of ploidy values were free of symptoms for short intervals. When morphometric data were considered alone, patients with high variance in the chromatin texture and highly variable nuclear areas had shorter asymptomatic intervals.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Image analysis cytometry of dysplastic nevi.

Computerized image analysis was used to assess nuclear atypia in 24 dysplastic nevi (DN), 19 CN (CN), and five thin melanomas. DN were selected for the study using architectural criteria alone. Feulgen-stained, 6-um sections were analyzed with a microTICAS cytometer. At least 100 nuclei were measured in each case. The standard deviation of nuclear area, mean nuclear roundness, standard deviation of nuclear roundness, mean ploidy, and standard deviation of ploidy were found to be significantly greater for DN than for CN. DNA histograms from DN showed an increased fraction above 2N, suggesting that DN are more proliferative than CN. No DN were aneuploid. All melanomas were aneuploid, and differed significantly from DN in mean nuclear area, standard deviation of nuclear area, mean ploidy, and standard deviation of ploidy. There were no significant differences between the junctional and intradermal populations of compound DN in any of the measured parameters, except that the intradermal nuclei were significantly rounder than the junctional nuclei. There were no significant differences between DN from patients with only a single DN and DN from patients with at least two dysplastic nevi.

Cell Nucleus↗
PubMed1990

Karyometric marker features in fine needle aspirates of invasive follicular carcinoma of the thyroid.

Karyometric measurements were performed on fine needle aspirates of clearly identifiable tumor areas and adjacent normal-appearing areas in the surgical specimens from ten patients with invasive follicular carcinoma of the thyroid. Similar measurements were performed on aspirates from nine patients free of thyroid disease (controls). A total of 95 karyometric features were evaluated for each nucleus. Analysis of variance of optical density values indicated (1) a similarity between tumor and normal-appearing nuclei from carcinoma cases, (2) a significant difference between those nuclei and control nuclei and (3) that most of the differences were due to the differences of tissue origin. Stepwise linear discriminant analysis selected ten features that produced a statistically highly significant separation of tumor nuclei from control nuclei. A similar analysis selected six features that produced a statistically highly significant discrimination of normal-appearing nuclei from control nuclei; the validity of those karyometric features as markers of malignancy in normal-appearing nuclei from tissues adjacent to invasive follicular carcinomas of the thyroid was demonstrated by analysis in further training and control sets of nuclei. This analysis in thyroid aspirates identified more marker features than did a previous similar analysis using tissue sections.

Adenocarcinoma↗
PubMed1990

Karyometric marker features in fine needle aspirates of microinvasive follicular carcinoma of the thyroid.

Karyometric measurements were performed on fine needle aspirates of clearly identifiable tumor areas and adjacent normal-appearing areas in the surgical specimens from ten patients with microinvasive follicular carcinoma of the thyroid. Similar measurements were performed on aspirates from nine patients free of thyroid disease (controls). A total of 95 karyometric features were evaluated for each nucleus. As compared with the control nuclei, the normal-appearing nuclei showed a 6% increase in total nuclear optical density (OD) while the tumor nuclei showed a 14% increase. Analysis of variance indicated a significant difference between the normal-appearing nuclei and the control nuclei, with most of the difference due to the differences of tissue origin. Discriminant analysis selected nine features that produced a statistically highly significant separation of tumor nuclei from control nuclei. A similar analysis selected five features that produced a statistically highly significant discrimination of normal-appearing nuclei from control nuclei; the validity of those karyometric features as markers of malignancy in normal-appearing nuclei from tissues adjacent to microinvasive follicular carcinomas of the thyroid was demonstrated by analysis in further training and test sets of nuclei.

Adenocarcinoma↗
PubMed1990

Artificial neural networks and their use in quantitative pathology.

A brief general introduction to artificial neural networks is presented, examining in detail the structure and operation of a prototype net developed for the solution of a simple pattern recognition problem in quantitative pathology. The process by which a neural network learns through example and gradually embodies its knowledge as a distributed representation is discussed, using this example. The application of neurocomputer technology to problems in quantitative pathology is explored, using real-world and illustrative examples. Included are examples of the use of artificial neural networks for pattern recognition, database analysis and machine vision. In the context of these examples, characteristics of neural nets, such as their ability to tolerate ambiguous, noisy and spurious data and spontaneously generalize from known examples to handle unfamiliar cases, are examined. Finally, the strengths and deficiencies of a connectionist approach are compared to those of traditional symbolic expert system methodology. It is concluded that artificial neural networks, used in conjunction with other nonalgorithmic artificial intelligence techniques and traditional algorithmic processing, may provide useful software engineering tools for the development of systems in quantitative pathology.

Artificial Intelligence↗
PubMed1990

Architectural, morphometric and photometric features and their relationship to the main subjective diagnostic clues in the grading of prostatic cancer.

Novel software was developed to perform quantitative measurements of architectural and nuclear features in tissue sections. A pilot study was then undertaken to determine the diagnostic relevance of these quantitative features in prostatic tissue and the relationship of these objective features to the subjective clues used by practicing pathologists in the grading of prostatic adenocarcinoma. From a group of 82 cases of adenocarcinoma of the prostate with long-term follow-up, a subset of 15 cases that included 5 each in Mostofi grades I, II and III was carefully selected for analysis. Consecutive sections from each case were stained with hematoxylin and eosin or the Feulgen stain for visual and cytometric evaluations, respectively. The most important differences in the objective architectural features observed between the Mostofi grade I and II cases were the number of nuclei per gland and their distance from the glandular center. Significant differences were also noted in gland size and the variation in gland size. The Mostofi grades were also significantly different in terms of quantitative high-resolution features measuring nuclear size and its variation, total nuclear DNA content and the proportion of very aneuploid nuclei. There was a fairly good agreement between many of the subjective diagnostic clues and their corresponding quantitative architectural and nuclear features. This work (1) significantly extended the capabilities of our PC-based microphotometer system to analyze glandular tissue specimens, (2) provided insight into the objective bases for the expert diagnosis of adenocarcinomas of the prostate and (3) gave preliminary evidence of the ability of quantitative architectural features and high-resolution cytometric features to discriminate between the major diagnostic categories of these lesions.

Adenocarcinoma↗
PubMed1990

Karyometric marker features in fine needle aspirates of follicular adenoma of the thyroid.

Karyometric measurements were performed on fine needle aspirates of clearly identifiable adenomatous areas and adjacent normal-appearing areas in the surgical specimens from ten patients with follicular adenomas of the thyroid. Similar measurements were made on aspirates from nine patients free of thyroid disease. A total of 95 karyometric features were evaluated for each nucleus. Analysis of variance of optical density values did not show a significant difference between the three types of nuclei. Discriminant analysis selected seven karyometric features that produced a statistically highly significant separation of adenoma nuclei from control nuclei. A similar analysis selected six features that produced a statistically highly significant discrimination of normal-appearing nuclei from control nuclei. The validity of these markers for distinguishing control nuclei from adenoma nuclei and normal-appearing nuclei adjacent to adenomas was demonstrated by analysis in further training and test sets. These findings parallel those previously demonstrated for invasive and microinvasive follicular carcinomas of the thyroid.

Adenoma↗
PubMed1990

Tissue architectural features for the grading of prostatic carcinoma.

In research for the development of a computer-aided workstation for the objective grading of prostatic carcinoma, tissue architectural (histometric) features were analyzed in ten cases each of well-differentiated, moderately differentiated and poorly differentiated carcinoma (as subjectively graded by the consensus of a panel of experts). Sections were cut at 4 microns, stained by the Feulgen reaction and digitized by two different video-based photometric systems. Some images were interactively segmented, considering the histometric clues to be studied; others were automatically segmented by an expert system-guided technique. The latter procedure produced good results, with over 90% of the nuclei judged to be correctly segmented in 64% of the fields studied and over 80% in another 24% of the fields. While the number of nuclei per field provided some separation of well-differentiated from other lesions, the number of nuclei per gland distinguished between well-differentiated and moderately differentiated lesions. Simplicial decomposition of the images also provided a measure of the degree of differentiation, as did the "texture" of the nuclear placement, based on two run-length statistics. Combination of the run-length features distinguished the three categories of lesions with statistical significance. The results of this study provided insights into the problems (such as the effect of field boundaries) faced in the design of an computer-aided grading system. They also showed the value of expert system-guided scene segmentation and of such histometric features as the field cellularity and the number of nuclei per gland for the discrimination between lesions of different grades of differentiation.

Cell Nucleus↗
PubMed1989

DNA ploidy profiles as prognostic indicators in CIN lesions.

The prognostic significance of DNA ploidy measurements in cervical tissues was examined. Microphotometric measurements of 302 Feulgen-stained tissue sections (91 normal squamous epithelia, 14 condylomata, 29 cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) I, 78 CIN II, and 90 CIN III) were performed with a personal computer (PC)-based video microphotometry system. Analysis of these data shows that the DNA profile provides significant prognostic information: CINs with a polyploid DNA profile are more likely to return to normal than are those exhibiting an aneuploid pattern. Of 211 abnormal cases, 38% had polyploid DNA profiles and 62% were aneuploid. Eight-six percent of the cases that regressed were polyploid and 14% were aneuploid. Of the 130 aneuploid DNA cases, 95% remained static or progressed and only 5% regressed. Of these nonregressing aneuploid lesions, 90 remained static and 34 progressed, whereas within the nonregressing polyploid group 37 remained static and only 6 progressed. This result holds across diagnostic categories. Several other ploidy-related descriptors also showed prognostic significance (including mean ploidy, the 5N exceeding rate and 2N deviation index, and discriminant functions derived from order statistic analysis of the cumulative DNA histograms), but not to the degree or with the consistency of expression as the DNA profile categorization. These results indicate that important information about the prognosis of CIN lesions may be obtained by the DNA profile on Feulgen-stained tissue specimens. The data were acquired by a cytophotometry system of relatively modest cost consisting of readily available hardware components.

Aneuploidy↗
PubMed1989

The significance of DNA measurements in a histologically defined subset of infiltrating ductal carcinomas of the breast with long-term follow-up.

The nuclear DNA content and other karyometric parameters were evaluated in a histologically homogeneous group of invasive ductal carcinomas of the breast from 13 patients who survived 25 years after radical mastectomy and from 13 controls matched for histologic tumor grade, lymph node status, tumor size and patient age. The nuclear DNA content and other morphometric features were evaluated by image analysis (using a modified TICAS system) on 12-microns-thick, Feulgen-stained sections. The DNA content of the tumors of both the long-term survivors and the controls varied from the diploid range to highly aneuploid (with a large proportion of the cells having a DNA content above 5N). Overall, the tumors of the controls exhibited a higher ploidy, a greater deviation from the diploid range and a greater variation of nuclear size than did the tumors of the long-term survivors. These results suggest that these measurements may be helpful in yielding prognostic information among sets of histologically identical breast tumors of similar pathologic stage.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Nuclear morphometric measurements in rectal adenocarcinoma cells of patients of different races.

The reasons for the different long-term prognoses of black and white patients following curative resection of a rectal adenocarcinoma are unknown. In order to investigate whether rectal adenocarcinomas in blacks have clinical or pathologic characteristics that are different from rectal adenocarcinomas in whites, 149 patients with potentially curable rectal cancers resected at the University of Chicago Medical Center between 1965 and 1981 were retrospectively analyzed. Clinical records, pathology reports and pertinent slides were reviewed in each case. In 142 cases, enough histologic material was available to perform nuclear photometric measurements and determinations of DNA content by the slide-cytophotometric method. There was no difference between black and white patients in the stage, differentiation degree, morphology and ploidy of the tumors, or in the presence of microinvasion, metastases and mucin production. However, adenocarcinoma cells of black patients had smaller nuclei than did the corresponding nuclei of white patients (54.7 +/- 2.34 sq microns versus 58.9 +/- 1.84 sq microns; P less than .05), and the neoplastic nuclei of black patients were significantly rounder and more regular than the nuclei of white patients (mean roundness factors of 1.1 +/- 0.003 vs. 1.11 +/- 0.005; P less than .05). Although these findings will require confirmation from other large clinical series, they suggest that the different prognoses of black and white patients after curative resection of a rectal adenocarcinoma may be explained by a different tumor behavior intrinsically related to different karyotypic characteristics of the neoplastic cells.

Adenocarcinoma↗