Am. J. Respir. Cell Mol. Biol., Volume 18, Number 2, February, 1998 213-217

p21^{waf1/cip1mda-6} Expression in Non-small-cell Lung Cancer: Relationship to Survival

Mario Caputi, Vincenzo Esposito, Alfonso Baldi, Antonio De Luca, Charity Dean, Guiseppe Signoriello, Feliciano Baldi, and Antonio Giordano

Departments of Pathology, Anatomy, and Cell Biology, and Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Istituto di Tisiologia e Malattie Respiratorie "S. Marcatili," Cattedra di Statistica Medica e Biometria, and Istituto di Anatomia e Istologia Patologica, Seconda Universita' degli Studi di Napoli, Naples, Italy

In order to clarify critical events during bronchial carcinogenesis, and to evaluate a possible prognostic role for p21 immunohistochemical detection, we assessed the immunohistochemical expression of p21 protein in 60 surgically resected non-small-cell lung cancers (NSCLCs) that had been investigated previously for their p53 protein status. We found that p21 protein was expressed in both normal and neoplastic tissue. In normal tissue, p21 immunoreactivity was detectable in a low percentage of well-differentiated cells. We found immunostaining for p21 in 80% of the investigated neoplasms. In 73.3% of the neoplasms, p21 was considered to be overexpressed. No relationship was found between p21 overexpression and tumor stage or tumor-nodal-metastatic (TNM) status. The histologic grading was slightly correlated with the p21 status (P = 0.51), with no significant differences noted between squamous carcinomas and adenocarcinomas. Survival percentage curves for our lung-cancer patients, based on a comparison of different p21 expression levels and constructed through a Kaplan-Meier analysis, showed significant differences in mean (P < 0.001) and overall (P < 0.001) survival time between patients of different p21 status, suggesting a favorable prognostic value of p21 immunostaining for NSCLC patients.

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