p53 overexpression as a prognostic indicator in endometrial carcinoma

To investigate the prognostic value of p53 overexpression in endometrial adenocarcinoma cases of different stages and histologic subtypes.

One hundred and eleven surgically staged endometrial carcinoma (EC) cases from 1996 to 2000 constituted this retrospective study group. Prognostic factors determined through the evaluation of surgery specimens by co-author pathologist, were surgical stage, tumor size, histology, histologic and nuclear grade, myometrial invasion, adnexal/serosal metastasis, peritoneal cytology, retroperitoneal lymph node involvement p53 overexpression was assessed via immunohistochemical staining. Tissues that expressed p53 were considered as positive p53 staining. In terms of degree of staining, 1-29%, 30-90% and 80-100% of tumoral tissue stained with p53 were considered to be mild, moderate and high p53 staining, respectively.

Mean age and follow-up period of the study group were 58.2 +/- 10.6 years and 33.4 +/- 2.7 months, respectively. Percentages of cases surgically staged as early (I-II) and advanced (III-IV) FIGO stages were 65.8% (n: 73) and 34.2% (n: 38), respectively. Cases with positive p53 staining had a significantly high mean survival period compared with those with negative p53 staining (86.6 +/- 6.0 vs 49.1 +/- 8.1, p < 0.001). p53 overexpression was statistically detected to be high in Stage III-IV tumors, non-endometrioid histologic subtypes (p = 0.019), histologic and nuclear grade 2-3 tumors (p < 0.001), adnexal/serosal metastasis (p = 0.001), lymph node involvement (p = 0.012), and positive peritoneal cytology (p = 0.017). The degree of p53 staining was remarkably correlated with survival. In cases with mild and high p53 staining, mean survival times were 47.1 +/- 7.0 months and 57.0 +/- 13.1 months, respectively (p = 0.0003) compared to those with high p53 staining. On univariate analysis, all of the prognosticators, including p53 staining (p < 0.001) and degree of p53 staining (p < 0.001) appeared to be independent risk factors for poor prognosis. On multivariate analysis, only pelvic lymph node involvement (p = 0.03), serosal/adnexal involvement (p = 0.004), and positive peritoneal cytology (p = 0.01) were found to be independent prognosticators of survival while p53 expression (p = 0.743) and degree of p53 staining (p = 0.802) were not detected as independent prognosticators.

p53 overexpression is strongly related to poor prognostic indicators in endometrial adenocarcinoma. Although in this study p53 overexpression was not detected as an independent prognosticator, additional studies with large data set are needed to evaluate the prognostic value of p53 expression.