the.com/mitotic figures
the taxidermied poses of cells caught mid-divorce, counted by pathologists to see if a tumor is in a hurry.
means microscopic snapshots of cells frozen in the act of dividing, whose number per field tells doctors how fast a tissue is growing.
from from mitosis, coined 1882 by german anatomist walther flemming after the greek mitos, meaning thread, describing the thread-like chromosomes he watched untangle and split under his microscope.
count mattersmore per 10 fields often means more aggressive cancer
atypical shapeslopsided or tripolar spindles flag malignancy specifically
grading toolused directly in breast cancer grading systems worldwide
time freezemitosis lasts under an hour, yet slides catch it constantly
for instance
nottingham grading system — scores breast tumors partly by mitotic count per 10 high power fields
ki-67 index — immunostain often paired with mitotic figures to gauge proliferation rate
gist tumors — gastrointestinal stromal tumors risk-stratified using mitotic counts per 50 fields