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Assessment of Cell Proliferation in Clinical Practice pp 63–81Cite as

Basic Methods for Assessing Cellular Proliferation

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Abstract

The major problem in attempting to assess proliferation is to ensure that the method used is capable of giving the data we seek. We should first consider what we want to measure. The commonest question is “can we say that cells in this tissue are being produced faster than in that?” Such questions demand a viable technique giving reproducible and unequivocal results that have discriminatory power in statistical tests, and it should be appreciated that such an ideal measurement has not yet emerged. Unfortunately, for both practical and ethical reasons, using clinical material often limits the type of procedure used. Many of the simplest methods will yield only information on the proliferative state of the cells not the rate at which they are being produced. This can produce misleading data since the question we posed asks about rates.

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Authors
  1. R. Dover
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Histopathology, UMDS, St Thomas’ Hospital, London, SE1 7EH, UK

    Peter A. Hall BSc, MD, MRCPath (Professor of Histopathology) (Professor of Histopathology)

  2. Department of Histopathology, UMDS, Guy’s Hospital, London, SE1 9RT, UK

    David A. Levison MD, FRCPath (Professor of Histopathology) (Professor of Histopathology)

  3. Imperial Cancer Research Fund, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, WC2A 3PN, UK

    Nicholas A. Wright MA, MD, PhD, DSc, FRCPath (Director of Clinical Research, Professor and Director) (Director of Clinical Research, Professor and Director)

  4. Department of Histopathology, Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, London, W12 0NN, UK

    Nicholas A. Wright MA, MD, PhD, DSc, FRCPath (Director of Clinical Research, Professor and Director) (Director of Clinical Research, Professor and Director)

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© 1992 Springer-Verlag London

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Dover, R. (1992). Basic Methods for Assessing Cellular Proliferation. In: Hall, P.A., Levison, D.A., Wright, N.A. (eds) Assessment of Cell Proliferation in Clinical Practice. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3190-8_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3190-8_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-3192-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-3190-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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