FREQUENCY OF P53 EXPRESSION IN EPITHELIAL OVARIAN CANCER

Abstract

Background: The ovarian carcinomas are the most cause of death in women due to cancer. The most common and lethal gynecological malignancy is malignant epithelial tumor.p53 may be used as a marker to predict aggressive behavior and poor response to standard chemotherapy.

Objective: To observe the frequency of positive immunohistochemical expression of p53 in surface epithelial carcinoma.

Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study for immunohistochemical expression of p53 on 100 diagnosed cases of surface epithelial carcinoma was conducted in the department of Histopathology, Chughtai Institute of of Pathology, Lahore during a period of 6 months. Nuclear staining for p53 was considered as positive. Cases with more than 10% positivity in tumor cells were considered as positive.

Results: The mean age of patients and size of tumor were 48.70 ± 10.5 1 years and 9.83 ± 5.33 cm respectively. 25% (n=25) patients had low histologic grades while 75%(n=75) patients had high histological grades.47% (n=47)patients were p53 positive and 53% (n=53) patients were negative for immunohistochemical expression of p53.

Conclusion: The present study states p53 positivity in 47% cases of epithelial ovarian cancer and the data fits to the proposed dualistic pathway of ovarian carcinogenesis as expression of p53 positive cases in high grade cancers is statistically significant ( <0.05).