Nuclear Morphometry in Typing and Grading Urothelial Neoplasms of Urinary Bladder

Abstract

In this study, by using image analyzer, the different diagnostic categories for urinary tumors described in WHO/ISUP 1998 classification were analyzed for the nuclear morphometric features and the data were statistically compared. Fifty six cases of urothelial neoplasia of urinary bladder diagnosed between 2002 and 2006 were selected from the archives of Ondokuz Mayis University, Department of Pathology. The cases were re-classified according to WHO/ISUP 1998 criteria. In each case morphometric assessment was performed for average 100-150 tumor cell nuclei and 10 largest tumor cell nuclei on the digitalized image. For each the selected cell, nuclear area (mu m2), perimeter (mu m), form factor, maximum and minimum diameters (mu m) were determined. We have found that morphometric analysis and WHO/ISUP 1998 classification show parallelism in the typing/grading of urothelial neoplasia of the urinary bladder. The standard use of nuclear morphometric features as an ancillary method for the classification of urinary neoplasms in difficult cases can be considered, however further studies that will include the prognostic data are needed.