Freshly operated tumor samples were obtained from 38 patients who had undergone surgery for endometrial and ovarian carcinomas at the hospital section of the Obstetrics and Gynocology at the Medical School of Çuku rova University, Adana, Turkey. Fifteen were excluded from the study because of bacterial contamination, detachment, or presence of necrotic tissue, thus leaving 12 endo metrial and 11 ovarian tumors for study. All tissues were examined macroscopically at the Pathology Department, Medical School, Çukurova University, Adana, Turkey, and came from invasive epithelial tumors. The study was approved by the Ethical Boards of the Medical School.

The tissues were disaggregated in a solution of trypsin-EDTA. The cell lines were initiated in tissue culture flasks (25 cm2) in Chang complete medium supplemented with penicillin-streptomycin to establish primary cultures [9]. The flasks were harvested for cytogenetic analysis after 7 to 10 days by exposure to colcemid followed by hypotonic treatment and fixation in methanol: acetic acid (3:1). The slides were incubated at 37°C for 2 days. Chromosomal analyses from tissue cultures were performed according to standart cytogenetic methods using the Giemsa banding technique [10]. The GTG (G bands by trypsin using Giemsa) banded slides were used for cytogenetic analysis and karyotype descriptions were made according to the International System for Human Cytogenetic Nomenclature (ISCN) [11].