Clinical studies of p53 in treatment and benefit of breast cancer patients.

Abstract

This article describes p53 as a prognostic and predictive factor, together with some information on how best to determine the p53 status. By December 1998, 13,000 articles on p53 were identified on Pub Med, the National Library of Medicine. Within one week a further 62 articles were recorded making it difficult to give the complete p53 story. This review article will focus on discussing p53 in relation to its predictive potential. So far, no firm conclusions can be made based on the articles studied. This may be, in part, because many studies have used less than optimal techniques for determination of the p53 status, together with the fact that the studies lacked power to detect a potential difference in outcome from specific therapy in relation to p53 status.

Worse survival for TP53 (p53)-mutated breast cancer patients receiving adjuvant CMF

“…Different techniques are available to determine the status of the TP53 gene: immunohistochemistry, cDNA-based sequencing and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, among others [14, 24 -26]. At present, relatively few studies have used more optimal methods, such as cDNAbased sequencing, rather than IHC for TP53 determinations [7,14,19,27,28].…”

Invasive breast cancer: correlation of dynamic MR features with prognostic factors

“…The expression of estrogen and progesterone receptors (ER, PR) determines responsiveness of tumors to endocrine therapy, and the absence of these receptors is usually a sign of poor prognosis [12]. Apart from steroid receptors, a wide range of immunohistochemically detectable biomarkers has recently been proposed as prognostic factors, e.g., oncoprotein c-erbB-2 (also known as HER2/neu) [13], the p53 tumor suppressor gene product [14] and a marker of proliferation, Ki-67 [15]. The expression of these biological markers correlates with differentiation, invasiveness and metastatic capacity of tumor cells [13,14,15].…”

A cancer-associated PCNA expressed in breast cancer has implications as a potential biomarker

“…In addition, immunohistochemical staining of PCNA has been used extensively in breast cancer diagnosis and prognosis (2,(4)(5)(6). PCNA has proven to be a useful marker to evaluate cell proliferation and prognosis when combined with other breast cancer markers, such as estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and Her2͞neu (2,(7)(8)(9). Increased PCNA expression was also shown to be related to a shorter disease-free period and overall survival time in patients with breast cancer (5).…”