AgNOR and breast cancer. A study by image analysis.

The nucleolar organizer regions are used as a new marker in proliferation cell. AgNOR are loops of DNA actively transcribing to ribosomal RNA and they are associated with nonhistone proteins with strong argyrophil. In the present study we correlated the relationships between number and size of AgNOR measured by an automatic image analysis using CAS-100, in eleven breast carcinomas in different clinical stages and histological grades. We could identify the AgNOR with silver stain; the relationship between the number/size and histological grade/clinical stage shows that in normal breast we find one or two AgNOR but this number is larger when the carcinomas are less differentiated. When studied, the size is larger in the normal breast. We can make the same conclusions with the carcinomas which are lymph-node +.