Significance of p53, Bcl-2, and HER-2/neu protein expression in Omani Arab females with breast cancer

Abstract

Racial disparity in the presentation of breast cancer and the outcome of its treatment is well established. However, the causes remain unexplained. The scarcity of reports about the prognostic significance of p53, bcl-2, and HER-2/neu in Arab females with breast cancer has been the impetus to this study. We evaluated the prognostic significance of altered expression of p53, bcl-2, HER-2/neu in Omani Arab females with non-metastatic breast cancer with correlation to other established prognostic factors. We have retrospectively analyzed the immunohistochemical expression of p53, HER-2/neu and bcl-2 in paraffin embedded blocks of 72 females diagnosed with invasive breast cancer between 1992 and 2002. The expression of the above proteins was correlated with other prognostic factors and univariate and multivariate analysis was carried out for all prognostic factors. Overexpression of p53 significantly correlated with younger age (<40), pre-menopausal status, poor differentiation with inverse correlation with bcl-2 expression. Expression of bcl-2 immunopostivity significantly correlated to low histological grade and positive estrogen and progesterone receptor status. On univariate and multivariate p53 overexpression and lack of bcl-2 immunostaining resulted in worse survival outcome, but not Her-2/neu overexpression. Expression patterns of p53 and bcl-2 are independent predictors of survival in Omani Arab population which may help to stratify these patients into different risk groups.

A Study of Expression of Her2/Neu in Carcinoma Breast With Reference to Clinicopathological Features and Prognostic Index

“…This finding is similar to studies of Mansour Al-Moundhri et al 13 (49.6 years), Azizun-Nisa et al 14 In the present study majority of the cases (64%) had the tumour size ranging from 2 -5 cms followed by 14 (28%) cases of tumour size of > 5 cms. In the study by Azizun-Nisa et al 14 also, 52.7% of tumour were between 2 -5 cms and 35.3% were > 5 cms.…”

“…A study by Al-Moundhri et al 13 Tumour size is one of the most useful predictors of behaviour of breast carcinoma. In the present study, while correlating the HER2/neu positivity with the size of the tumour, majority was seen in with the tumour size between 2 -5 cms (50%) followed by 35.7%.…”

An observational study on the incidence of HER-2/neu receptor over-expression and comparison of clinical presentation between HER-2/neu positive and HER-2/neu negative breast cancer

“…12,13 Age at menarche, age at menopause Our finding regarding the age at Menarche and Menopause is corroborative with a retrospective analysis of breast cancer cases conducted by Siddiqui T et al, who showed the age of menarche and the age of Menopause has no statistical significance between the HER-2/neu positive and the HER-2/neu negative Breast cancer in the population. 14 Number of full term pregnancy, age at first full term pregnancy, parity, family history of ovarian/breast cancer among first degree relatives, site of lump (left /right/bilateral), skin-nipple areola involvement.…”

Mutant p53 protein in serum could be used as a molecular marker in human breast cancer

“…Al-Moundhri et al (23) found p53 overexpression in 41.7% of breast tumors examined with statistical significance. They also reported that p53 accumulation is related to poor tumor differentiation in human breast cancer (23).…”

“…IHC using the streptavidin-biotinperoxidase method was performed on paraffin-embedded tissue using the anti-p53 mouse monoclonal antibody, DO-1 (diluted 1:100), which recognizes the N-terminus of the human p53 protein (amino acids [21][22][23]. In addition, the antibody reacted with both wild-type and many mutant p53 proteins.…”