ABSTRACT

The cotton-top tamarin is proposed as a potentially important animal model for the study of colon cancer, because the tamarin, like the human, develops ulcerative colitis which in time undergoes tissue changes and progresses with a high incidence to colonic cancer. Colon cancer nuclei can be recovered from paraffin-embedded tissue in a quality and quantity suitable for flow cytometry analysis. The tamarin model must still be further understood and developed, and the prognostic value of flow cytometry even in human surveillance is still under investigation. Although virtually everyone is now familiar with the basic tenets of flow cytometry, it is important to remember that this technique is basically one of cytology. Flow cytometry has been, and continues to be, studied as a potential technique to provide an objective assessment of premalignant or early malignant transformation in patients with ulcerative colitis. Beyond staging or evaluating possible prognosis, flow cytometry-determined DNA content has been investigated as a screening test.