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Prognostic significance of p53 expression in ovarian granulosa cell tumors
S L Ala-Fossi1, J Mäenpää, R Aine
1Department of Clinical Chemistry, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, FIN-33521, Finland.
Objective:
The purpose of the study was to investigate the significance of p53 expression for the prognosis in patients with ovarian granulosa cell tumors (GCT).
Methods:
The records of 30 patients operated on for GCT at Tampere University Hospital, Finland, were reviewed. The mean age at the time of the diagnosis was 55 years. Twenty-one of the tumors were of FIGO stage I, three were of stage II, three were of stage III, and three were of stage IV. Paraffin-embedded tumor specimens were analyzed by immunohistochemistry for expression of mutated p53 protein and by flow cytometry.
Results:
Eleven tumors were positive for p53 and 19 were negative. The median crude survival of p53-negative patients was 10 times that of p53-positive ones (210 months vs 21 months, P = 0.037, log-rank test). The association between p53 immunoreactivity and stage was statistically significant (P = 0.026 Pearson chi2 test), while there was no association between p53 expression and DNA ploidy or S-phase fraction.
Conclusion:
Although the results should be considered as preliminary, expression of mutated p53 in ovarian granulosa cell tumors seems to be associated with unfavorable prognosis.