Which oral white lesions will become malignant? An image cytometric study

We investigated the value of image cytometry in predicting the prognosis of oral epithelial lesions, whether or not they show dysplasia. Thirty-five oral epithelial lesions were studied retrospectively. Of these, 23 had later transformed to carcinoma and 12 had not. By means of the Leitz TAS image analyzer, 200 nuclei of epithelial cells and 20 nuclei of lymphocytes from each section were individually assessed for eight features related to shape and amount of stain and for six features related to chromatin pattern. The mean, standard deviation, and interquartile range of each feature were calculated, first for each section and then for each group. With the use of linear stepwise discriminant analysis we constructed a predictive model, which consisted of three variables related to chromatin pattern. The variables were mean margination, standard deviation of clumping, and standard deviation of condensation. In the jackknife classification, this model predicted the malignant potential of the lesions that later transformed to cancer with 86% predictive value and 83% sensitivity. © 1990.