Re-visiting Luck’s classification: a histological analysis of Dupuytren’s disease

Abstract

Luck (1959) described a histological staging system for Dupuytren’s disease, classifying the disease into three stages. Previous biochemical and immunochemical studies have detailed the decrease in type III/I collagen ratio with disease progression. Herovici (1963) described a histological stain that produced a differential red/purple and blue colour for type I and III collagen respectively. We stained 15 specimens of Dupuytren’s disease and quantified the different collagen types in each using computer analysis. We found a corresponding decrease in the amount of type III collagen as a percentage of the total collagen with disease progression: stage I range 35–49% (mean 38%); stage 2 range 21–33% (mean 27%) and stage 3 range 11–19% (mean 14%). We propose a new staging system based on the relative amount of type III collagen, where stage 1: >35%, stage 2: >20% and <35%, and stage 3: <20%.