P53 AND CYCLIN D1 PROTEIN EXPRESSION IN GLOTTIC LARYNGEAL SQUAMOUS-CELL CARCINOMAS INVOLVING THE ANTERIOR COMMISSURE (PT1BN0M0)

The prognosis of patients carrying glottic squamous cell carcinomas (G SCCs) involving the anterior commissure is often unpredictable. In ord er to assess the possible prognostic role of new and reliable paramete rs, p53 and cyclin D1 protein expression was immunohistochemically ana lysed in pathological samples from 27 patients with GSCG (pTlbNOMO) an d a median follow-up of 90 months. p53 protein expression was observed in the majority of patients (15/27), but it did not correlate with th eir clinical outcome; p53 protein immunoreactivity was frequently obse rved in normal (9/14), mildy dysplastic (10/14) and highly dysplastic (3/7) mucosa samples, suggesting that its overexpression may be involv ed in the earliest phases of the multistep tumourigenesis of laryngeal squamous cell carcinomas (LSCCs); neither the non-neoplastic nor the neoplastic samples expressed any cyclin D1. As cyclin D1 protein expre ssion has been associated with a high frequency of nodal metastases, i ts absence in our series could ba related to the rarity of nodal invol vement in early glottic LSCCs.