Tumor angiogenesis increases with nuclear p53 accumulation in gastric carcinoma.
OBJECTIVE
Tumor angiogenesis is associated with disease stage in gastric carcinoma. The tumor suppressor p53 was recently reported to regulate angiogenesis. We investigated the relationship between nuclear p53 accumulation and tumor vascularity in gastric carcinoma.


METHODS
Patients with gastric carcinoma undergoing surgery were randomly enrolled. Nuclear p53 expression assessed by immunohistochemistry on tumor sections was categorized as higher and lower groups. Tumor vascularity was assessed by counting microvessel density on anti-CD34 stained sections. Tumor vascularity between different p53 expressions was compared based on the different clinicopathologic characteristics.


RESULTS
Twenty-three patients had gastric carcinoma with higher nuclear p53 expression and 42 with lower nuclear p53 expression. Vascularity in higher p53 group (54.3 +/- 35.3) was significantly higher than that in lower p53 group (32.1 +/- 29.9) (p = 0.009). Further analysis showed that higher nuclear p53 immunoreactivity was associated with significantly higher vascularity in the advanced gastric carcinoma group (p = 0.023), the intestinal type group (p = 0.003), the non-cardiac group (p = 0.019), and the H. pylori-negative group (p = 0.014).


CONCLUSIONS
The present study demonstrated that nuclear p53 protein expression positively associates vascularity in gastric carcinoma although their relationship varies in the different clinicopathologic subsets.
Huang
Shih-Pei
SP
Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Wu
Ming-Shiang
MS
Shun
Chia-Tung
CT
Wang
Hsiu-Po
HP
Lin
Jaw-Town
JT
D000368:Aged; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000378:metabolism*; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 / Q000378:metabolism*
D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53