Thymidine uptake in vitro as a prognostic indicator for primary gastric cancer.
BACKGROUND: Prognostic significance of in vitro thymidine uptake by cancer cells remains unclear in patients with gastric cancer. METHODS: In 173 patients with operable gastric cancer, the relations between thymidine uptake by gastric cancer cells in semi-solid media and their clinicopathologic features as well as their survival lengths were studied. RESULTS: There were significant correlations between in vitro thymidine uptake and such clinicopathologic features as lymph node metastasis (P = 0.00002), lymphatic invasion (P = 0.003), vessel invasion (P = 0.006), peritoneal metastasis (P = 0.010), depth of invasion (P = 0.011), and hepatic metastasis (P = 0.032). Ninety-five of 173 cancers (54.9%) that incorporated 1000 or more cpm in a single well were designated as being a high uptake group. Other gastric cancers (78 of 173; 45.1%) were designated as being a low uptake group. The overall survival rate of the patients was demonstrated to be significantly longer in the group with a low thymidine uptake than with a high uptake (P < 0.00001). The multivariate analysis showed that thymidine is one of the two variables that are the most highly correlated with the probability of patient death (P = 0.00044). CONCLUSIONS: These results indicated that in vitro thymidine uptake is an independent prognostic parameter for gastric cancer and may be useful for selecting patients who would benefit from more intensive therapy.