Serum anti-p53 antibodies in the follow-up of patients with advanced ovarian carcinoma

Serum anti-p53 antibodies have been detected in different human malignancie s, including ovarian carcinoma. In the present investigation these autoanti bodies were retrospectively measured with a new ELISA (Immunotech, Marseill es, France) before first surgery and subsequently at different times during the course of disease from 40 patients with advanced ovarian carcinoma. An ti-p53 antibodies were preoperatively found in 15 (37.5%) patients. With re gard to the follow-up of these 15 patients, anti-p53 antibodies were detect ed in 87.8% of the 41 samples drawn when there was clinical evidence of dis ease compared to 57.1% of the 14 samples collected when there was no clinic al evidence of tumor (p=0.037). As for the 25 patients whose serum original ly scored negative, the autoantibodies were found only in 1.8% of the 113 s amples obtained during the follow-up, independently of the status of diseas e. In conclusion, anti-p53 antibodies are often detected in serum from pati ents with advanced ovarian carcinoma. However, the serial measurement of th ese autoantibodies does not seem to give useful clinical information for th e follow-up of these patients.