Primary lung cancer is now recognized as a major cause of cancer death in Korea as well as the whole world. Non-small-cell lung cancers(NSCLC) comprise about 75% of lung cancer and squamous cell carcinoma is the most common type in Korea.
Mutations
of
p53 gene are common in variety of human cancers, including lung cancer.
The p53 gene appears to inhibit the proliferation of cells from the G1 to the S phase of cell cycle and is able to suppress the transformations of cells by other oncogenes, to inhibit the growth of malignant cells in vitro and suppress the
tumorigenic
phenotype of transformed cells.
Alteration or inactivation of p53 by mutation, or by its interactions with oncogene products of DNA tumor viruses, can lead to cancer. These mutations seems to be the most common genetic changes in human cancers. P53 gene mutation is known to be
a
poor
prognostic marker in breast cancer and has significant association with lymph node involvement. But in human lung cancer the association of p53 mutations and TNM stages are controversial.
Immunohistochemical staining can detect only mutant p53 protein bacause of markedly prolonged half life of mutant p53 protein.
We performed the immunohistochemical staining on 48 surgically resected and 10 bronchoscopically biopsized specimens of primary squamous cell carcinoma of the lung with monoclonal antibody(DO 7) and analyzed the relationship between the
expression
of
p53 protein and clinical TNM stages.
P53 protein was detected in 60.3% of total 58 cases. p53 protein was positive in 52.9% of stage I(17 cases), 83.3% of stage II(6 cases), 72.2% of IIIA(18 cases), 42.9% of IIIB(7 cases) and 50% of stage IV(10 cases) which reveled no significant
correlation between p53 protein detection and stages. There was no significant correlation between p53 protein detection and N0 and N1-3 as well as M0 and M1.
In conclusion, we couldn't find any significant correlation between p53 protein detection and TNM stages which suggests p53 mutation is frequent in squamous cell carcinoma of the lung but play different role in progression of clinical stages.
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