p53 expression in correlation to clinical outcome in patients with renal cell carcinoma

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of p53 as prognos tic factor in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and its relation to clinicopatholo gical factors. Material and methods: The nuclear accumulation of p53 protei n was determined by immunohistochemical analysis in RCC specimens from 90 p atients and was correlated with clinical stage, grade, DNA ploidy, S-phase fraction and cancer-specific survival. Results: p53 overexpression was obse rved in 17 of 90 (19%) tumours;. There was a significant correlation to sta ge (p = 0.016) and grade (p = 0.020) but not to DNA ploidy or S-phase. Pati ents with high p53 immunoreactivity had shorter cancer-specific survival (p = 0.003) than those with normal p53 protein expression. This difference wa s found in papillary and chromophobe tumour types (p < 0.0001) but not in c onventional RCC. Conclusions: In patients with RCC, significant correlation s between p53 protein expression and tumour stage, grade and survival time were observed. For patients with chromophobe: and papillary tumour types, b ut not in conventional RCC. p53 immunoreactivity gave prognostic informatio n, suggesting that the prognostic differences in p53 immunoreactivity might be due to disparate genetic abnormalities in the different RCC types.