Pathological characteristics, PCNA labeling index and DNA index in prognostic evaluation of patients with moderately differentiated hepatocellular carcinoma

AIM: To study the relationship between prognosis and pathological characteristics, proliferating cell nuclear antigen labeling index (PCNA-LI) and DNA index (DI) in patients with moderately differentiated hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC). METHODS: 51 cases of moderately differentiated HCC were analyzed with respect to the relation between their clinical follow-up data and pathological characteristics. Meanwhile, PCNA-LI of HCC cells was detected by immunohistochemistry assay and DI was measured by Feulgen staining and automatic image analysis technique. RESULTS: Patients with a single tumor nodule, less than 5 cm in diameter, no tumor emboli, no daughter nodules and necrosis had relatively better prognosis; patients with euploidy HCC had better prognosis than those with aneuploidy; among the aneuploidy patients those with DI <1.5 had better prognosis than the cases with DI>1.5; The higher the PCNA-LI, the worse would be the prognosis. The increase in DI was correlated with the increase in PCNA-LI, and both of them were correlated with the pathological changes of the tumor. CONCLUSION: A composite analysis of the pathological characteristics of tumor tissue, DI and PCNA-LI might be useful in predicting the prognosis of HCC patients.