LOCALIZED ADENOCARCINOMA OF THE LUNG - ONCOGENE EXPRESSION OF ERBB-2 AND P53 IN 150 PATIENTS

Historical information and pathological material from 150 consecutive patients with localized adenocarcinoma of the lung was collected to ev aluate oncogene expression of erbB-2 and p53, end erbB-2 gene amplific ation, Pathological material after resection was reviewed to verify hi stological staging, and patient follow-up was complete in all cases fo r at least 68 months, Immunohistochemistry of erbB-2 (HER-2/neu) and p 53 oncogene expression was performed on two separate paraffin tumor bl ocks for each patient with normal lung as control, Gene amplification of erbB-2 was measured after DNA extraction from 20-mu m sections of e rbB-2-positive and -negative tumors, All analyses were blinded and inc luded Kaplan-Meier survival estimates with Cox proportional hazards re gression modeling, Two adequate blocks of tumor and normal lung were a vailable for 138 (92%) patients, Immunohistochemical identification of expression of p53 was observed in 49 (37%) patients and erbB-2 in 17 (13%) patients, DNA dot blot analyses were performed on 17 erbB-2-posi tive and 13 randomly selected erbB-2-negative tumors, There was 1 (6%) of 17 erbB-2-positve tumors with 4-fold erbB-2 gene amplification. Ac tual 5-year survival was 63% and actuarial 10-year survival was 59% fo r the entire population of 150 patients, Significant univariate predic tors (P < 0.05) of cancer death were the presence of symptoms, tumor s ize >3 cm, poor differentiation, visceral pleural invasion, and p53 ex pression, Multivariate analysis associated symptoms and p53 expression as independent factors with decreased survival, Thus, this project ex amined p53 and erbB-2 expression in patients with localized adenocarci noma and associated p53 status with survival, Multicenter collection o f data should allow the development of a model of cancer recurrence in this most common lung cancer.