P53, p63 and Ki-67 assessment in HPV-induced cervical neoplasia

Carcinoma of the uterine cervix is the most frequent malignancy in women, with an incidence of approximately 456.000 cases per year, leading to 200.000 deaths per year. Twenty-six archived formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples of squamous cell carcinoma, selected from 30 Papanicolaou-positive smears, have been analyzed using standard HE stain and the IHC indirect tristadial ABC peroxidase method for four antibodies: p53, p63, Ki-67, HPV. Statistical analysis has been done using the Student t-test, one-group two tails, "paired two samples for mean" variant. Two thirds of the cases were medium and poor differentiated carcinomas. The expression pattern of the proliferation and prognostic factors was biologically correlated with the histopathological type and HPV-infection. Two statistically significant correlations were found between p63 and Ki-67 and between p63 and p53 (p<0.001). The significant increase of the expression of the analyzed immunomarkers was observed in most of the cases with late stage of cervical neoplasm. P63, followed by Ki-67, showed better correlation with cancer progression than p53. This observation could be used in clinical practice with the purpose of identifying those patients requiring more aggressive treatment.