title: Altered retinoblastoma and p53 protein status in non-small cell carcinoma of the lung: potential synergistic effects on prognosis.
abstract: Routinely processed pathological specimens from 119 patients with stage I and II adenocarcinomas or squamous cell carcinomas were examined by immunohistochemical analysis for altered retinoblastoma (RB) and/or p53 protein expression. Absent RB nuclear staining (RB-) indicating loss of RB function occurred in 19 (16%) of the cases studied, whereas expression of a putative mutant p53 nuclear protein (p53(+)) was found in 54 (45%) of the tumors. The median survival was 39 versus 12 months for patients with RB+ and RB- tumors, respectively (P = 0.05 by log rank analysis). Similarly, the median survival was 41 months for patients whose tumors had no expression of mutant p53 (p53(-)) compared with 24 months for individuals with p53 (+) tumors (P = 0.01). These differences in survival, however, were not statistically significant by multivariate analysis. Nevertheless, individuals with RB-/p53(+) tumors had a significantly shorter median survival (12 months) than those with RB+/p53(-) tumors (41 months), as determined by both log rank and multivariate analyses (P = 0.005 and 0.03, respectively). In addition, 66 large cell carcinomas from all stages were examined. Again, a more significant difference in survival (48 versus 8 months) was found between patients with RB+/p53(-) versus RB-/p53(+) tumors (P = 0. 006). These results suggest that RB and p53 status might be used synergistically as prognostic factors in a subset of non-small cell lung carcinomas.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Molecular Oncology and Hematology, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas 77030, USA.
authors.forename: H J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: P T
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Cagle
authors.forename: S X
authors.initials: SX
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: W F
authors.initials: WF
authors.lastname: Benedict
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002289:Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000401:mortality; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000401:mortality; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D016160:Retinoblastoma Protein / Q000032:analysis*; D015996:Survival Rate; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D016160:Retinoblastoma Protein; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53