Outcome of Ductal Carcinoma in Situ in Patients with or Without p53 Mutations

Abstract

Objectives p53 is a tumor suppressor gene and plays an important role in the etiology of breast cancer. The aim of this study is to clarify clinical significance of p53 in Ductal Carcinoma in situ (DCIS), and discuss about survival effect. Methods The study subjects, 69 women with breast cancer, were a subset of patients operated from Jan 2005 to Dec 2006. We used a cutoff of 10% to distinguish between positive and negative p53 staining. The University of Southern California (USC)/Van Nuys Prognostic Index (VNPI) were compared with 2 categories of p53. Results The positivity of p53 was found in 20 patients (29.0%) in DCIS. And negativity of p53 was found in 49 patients (71.0%). And 15 patients (21.7%) had a low USC/VNPI score, 42 patients (60.9%) intermediate and 12 patients (17.4%) a high score. The positivity of p53 was correlated with high USC/VNPI (P = 0.001). The univariate analysis for prognostic factors associated with Disease Free Survival (DFS) revealed that patients with p53 positivity show shorter Disease Free Survival (DFS) than patients with p53 negativity (P = 0.013) and USC/VNPI was also statistically significant (P = 0.030). Conclusions According to our study, p53 was associated with high USC/VNPI. These findings suggest that p53 can be used to classify DCIS into at least two subtypes with differing prognoses.

Keywords

• ductal carcinoma in situ
• p53
• prognosis
• vnpi