Morphometric and pathological study of urinary bladder carcinomas : significance of schistosomal fibrosis

Abstract EN

Objective measurement of microscopic features has been advocated for decades as a method to make more reproducible and "scientific" the practice of histopathology, but it is only recently that technical advances in computing have rendered this procedure suitable for diagnostic and prognostic determinations in surgical pathology.

Urinary bladder cancer is the third most common malignancy in Iraq.

Heavy Schistosoma haematobium infection predisposes to bladder cancer which is usually of squamous cell type and accounts for about one quarter of deaths from this infection.We investigated the extent of fibrosis in forty urinary bladder carcinomas (15 Schistosomal associated SASCC and 25 Schistosomal non-associated transitional cell carcinoma SNATCC).

The cases were subjected to quantitative assessment of their fibrosis by (1) colorimetric micromethod for collagen measurement (2) morphometric assessment of collagen by use of image analyzer.

The results obtained by both methods showed that SASCC were more fibrogenic than SNATCC and displaying more desmoplasia.

It is concluded that the total amount of collagen in addition to the distribution pattern of the fibrotic process in schistosomal cases around the newly formed blood vessel and lymphatic both play a role in determination of the unique behavior of such neoplasm.