P53 NUCLEAR ACCUMULATION IN PRENEOPLASTIC LESIONS AND STAGE-I UTERINEENDOMETRIOID ADENOCARCINOMA

A total of 118 endometrial neoplastic and preneoplastic lesions compri sing 43 uterine endometrioid adenocarcinoma at stage I, 40 complex (ad enomatous) hyperplasias and 35 atypical hyperplasias were examined for p53 nuclear accumulation to assess the incidence of p53 alterations i n infiltrating carcinomas and to verify if p53 aberrations may allow t he identification of a subset of premalignant cases with high risk of progression. No specific immunostaining was observed in the cases of c omplex hyperplasia without atypias. One (3%) of 35 atypical hyperplasi as showed focal areas of p53 immuno-reactivity. The overall frequency of p53 overexpression in endometrial carcinomas was 54%. The distribut ion of cases with nuclear accumulation of p53 was significantly differ ent (p=0.01) in tumours with different degree of invasiveness. In addi tion, p53 nuclear accumulation was observed more often in tumours with moderate (G2) or poor differentiation (G3) (p=0.03). Our data indicat e that p53 aberrations are not early events in endometrial carcinogene sis and may be related with tumour progression and aggressiveness.