A CONTROVERSIAL UNCERTAINTY IN THE ROLE OF NUCLEAR P53 ACCUMULATION IN HUMAN PROSTATE CARCINOMAS

p53 tumor suppressor gene is implicated in more than half of the human neoplasms. Predicting the clinical course of the prostate cancers (CaP) is still a difficult problem in the decision-making of the treatment of CaP because of the different biological behaviour spectrum of the tumor. Nuclear accumulation of p53 was examined immunohistochemically in 40 patients with CaP at Dicle University Hospital. We analyzed the relationship of nuclear p53 immunoreactivity with tumor Gleason score, stage of the disease and serum PSA levels. The nuclear accumulation of p53 was positive in 15% of the patients. None of the patients with well-differentiated tumors had nuclear p53 immunoreactivity in more than 10% of the cells. Whereas, nuclear p53 immunoreactivity was positive in 11 % of the patients with moderately differentiated tumors and 33% of the patients with undifferentiated tumors. Although the association of serum PSA levels with nuclear p53 overexpression was not significant, there was a tendency for higher levels of serum PSA in patients with nuclear p53 immunoreactivity. Our findings suggest that the frequency of nuclear p53 immunoreactivity in patients with CaP was less frequent when compared to other carcinomas.