PREVALENCE OF SERUM ANTIBODIES AGAINST THE P53 TUMOR-SUPPRESSOR GENE PROTEIN IN VARIOUS CANCERS

We have developed 2 new quantitative methods for measuring anti-p53 an tibodies in human serum. Using these methods we analyzed 1,392 sera fr om patients with various malignancies and 230 sera from individuals wi thout malignancy. Highest prevalence of anti-p53 antibodies was associ ated with ovarian and colon cancers (15%), followed by lung (8%) and b reast (5%) cancers. Prevalence in other malignancies was lower (<4%). In hospitalized patients and apparently healthy individuals, prevalenc e was very low (<2 and 1% respectively). Extremely high antibody conce ntrations (> 10(5) U/L) were found in 5 ovarian, 2 breast, 1 lung and 1 colon cancers. Sequential analysis of 6 positive samples has shown t hat the p53 antibody test may have potential for patient monitoring. T he p53 antibody-positive sera from breast cancer patients were associa ted with tumors that were steroid hormone receptor-negative (p<0.002). We propose that the measurement of p53 antibodies is a relatively spe cific serological test for cancer, which can be performed with easily automatable and quantitative methodologies and may be further exploite d for patient monitoring, prognosis, diagnosis and probably screening for selected cancers. (C) 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.