Abstract

Mitotic count is the most commonly used method of assessing the proliferative activity of a tumor. Mitotic count should be done very meticulously because it is used to evaluate prognosis of various tumors and is one of the cornerstones for the diagnosis and grading of malignant tumors. Aims and objectives: Factors affecting mitotic count starts from the initial stage of fixation itself. There are numerous other variables that can also influence the mitotic count; our study is designed to assess effects of delay of fixation on the mitotic counts. Materials and methods: We studied 40 cases which composed of 30 cases of Infiltrative duct carcinoma, Breast & 10 cases of high grade Non Hodgkin’s lymphoma. To study the effect of delay in fixation. Comparisons of mitotic count/ High power field made between sections fixed immediately, after 1 hour and after 6 hours. The correlations between mitotic counts and Ki-67 labeling indices were also looked Results: our study showed that lack of prompt fixation (p<0.001) led to significant change in mitotic counts. Both mitotic counts and ki-67 index were significantly higher in immediately fixed specimens compared to those fixed after 1 hour. There was only weak correlation between Ki-67 index and mitotic count. Conclusion: Better precision can be obtained in mitotic counts by prompt fixation of the surgical specimens. This can be achieved by good coordination between surgical and pathology teams.

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