Malignancy of Acinic Cell Tumours Elucidated by Microspectrophotometric Dna Analysis

Abstract

“Acinic cell tumour” is nowadays generally considered as a biological malignant tumour type, but the often existing pronounced benign histological features have raised the question, unless beside the malignant tumours of this type there also exists a benign variety. In order to study this problem, micro-spectrophotometric determinations of the nuclear DNA content of Feulgen-stained cells of an acinic cell tumour without malignant histological features have been performed and compared with control cells and tumour cells from a biological benign and a biological malignant salivary gland tumour. The microspectro-photometric DNA analysis performed in the present study showed that the nuclei of an acinic cell tumour with histologically benign features exhibited significantly higher DNA values than normal control cells and the cells from the benign tumour (a mono-morphic adenoma). On the other hand the micro-spectrophotometric analysis showed that the nuclear DNA content of the “acinic cell tumour” cells was increased to the same level as in the cells of a poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma. Thus, the results of the DNA analysis argue against the existence of a benign variety of the acinic cell tumour, which therefore, irrespective of the histological features, should be considered as a malignant type of tumour.