RESEARCH OF PROGNOSTIC FACTORS IN BREAST CARCINOMA

Abnormalities of the p53 gene are now known to be one of the most commonly reported genetic changes in malignant tissue, and are thought to play an important role in many types of cancer, including breast cancer. We investigated the established prognostic factors in 124 patients with breast carcinoma and treated with adjuvant therapy, and also investigated whether the determination of p53 has prognostic value in 52 patients. To assess the p53 protein immunoreactivity, 52 patients with breast cancer were examined using immunohistochemical methods, p53 protein was detected in 29 (58.5%) of these primary breast cancer specimens. p53 expression was significantly associated with grade. While there were no statistically significant associations between p53 and age, menopausal status, tumor size, lymph node status; weak significant associations were found between p53 and estrogen (ER) and progesteron receptor (PgR) status. We found that p53 expression was a significant prognostic indicator for overall survival (OS) (P<0.05) but not for disease-free survival (DPS) (P>0.05). Beside p53, also tumor size (P=0.006), the number of axillary metastatic nodes (P=0.01), ER (P=0.001) and PgR status (P=0.003) were significantly prognostic for OS in univariate analysis. For DPS, tumor size (P=0.0001), axillary nodal status (P=0.0004), ER (P=0.0001) status and nuclear grade (P=0.03) had prognostic significance. The findings of a correlation between p53 expression and the prognosis of patients with breast carcinoma suggests that p53 expression is a significant prognostic factor in human breast cancer but further studies are needed to verify the prognostic value of p53 in a larger patient population.