[Correlation of cytologic and DNA ploidy evidence and prognosis in childhood Wilm's tumor].

: A retrospective evaluation of the clinical features, cytological, biological (DNA) and histological data on 29 children with Wilms' tumor. Two prognosis-related groups were identified: (1) good outcome (17)--all children, aged 4-15, had survived by end of follow-up; (2) bad outcome (12)--all children died within 4 months--4 years. Cytological examination by fine-needle biopsy of smears was carried out prior to preoperative neoadjuvant therapy in all 29 patients; in addition, print smears from resected tumor were taken from 21. Blastemal, stromal, epithelial and anaplastic cells levels were estimated by the semi-quantitative procedure (0, 1+, 2+, 3+). DNA ploidy was determined by image cytometry after destaining slides and re-staining them according to Feulgen. It was shown that favorable outcome could be expected when fine-needle biopsy of print smears identified DNA diploidy and marked drug-related pathomorphosis involving fewer blastemal cells and signs of cell dystrophy and tumor necrosis. When anaplastic and aneuploid cells were detected, matched by the absence of therapeutic pathomorphosis, outcome was poor.