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. 1999 Feb;79(5-6):945–951. doi: 10.1038/sj.bjc.6690151

Comparison of the Ki-67 score and S-phase fraction as prognostic variables in soft-tissue sarcoma

R L Huuhtanen 1, C P Blomqvist 1, T A Wiklund 1, T O Böhling 2, M J Virolainen 2, E J Tukiainen 3, B Tribukait 4, L C Andersson 2
PMCID: PMC2362649  PMID: 10070895

Abstract

Immunohistochemically determined Ki-67 scores and flow cytometrically determined S-phase fractions were successfully evaluated from the primary tumours of 123 patients with soft-tissue sarcoma. All patients had either limb or superficial trunk tumours. Ki-67 score correlated strongly with ploidy, S-phase fraction and grade. Ki-67 did not correlate with the size of the primary tumour. When analysed as a continuous variable, Ki-67 was a stronger predictor of both metastasis-free survival and disease-specific overall survival (P= 0.003 and 0.04 respectively) than was the S-phase fraction (P= 0.06 and 0.07 respectively). We tested the relevance of different cut-point values by dividing the whole material into two parts at every 10% (e.g. 10% of patients vs. the remaining 90%, 20% vs. 80%, etc.). We counted the relative risk and confidence interval at all these cut-off points. Ki-67 had good prognostic discriminating power irrespective of the cut-point value, but S-phase fraction lost its prognostic power at higher cut-point values. In conclusion, we found that Ki-67 is a useful prognostic tool in the treatment of soft-tissue sarcoma patients irrespective of the cut-point value. S-phase fraction can be used at lower cut-point values. © 1999 Cancer Research Campaign

Keywords: soft-tissue sarcoma, prognosis, S-phase, Ki-67, flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry

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Selected References

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