Protein accumulation and gene mutation of p53 in bilateral breast cancer

The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of p53 alterations i n bilateral breast cancer and to evaluate a possible clonal relationship be tween the paired tumours regarding p53 alteration and other pathobiological variables. Tumours from 34 patients were investigated with immunohistochem istry, single strand conformation polymorphism analysis and DNA-sequence an alysis applied to exons 5-8. Fifteen percent of the 68 tumours showed posit ive immunoreaction and/or presence of mutation. The occurrence of p53 accum ulation was 9% and the prevalence of gene mutation 10%. No significant conc ordance was found between the tumours in the same patient for p53 alteratio ns, progesterone receptor status or DNA ploidy. S-phase fraction showed a w eak correlation, not statistically significant. Oestrogen receptor status w as the only variable that exhibited a significant concordance. No convincin g evidence was found for other associations between the paired rumours or f or a high prevalence of p53 alterations in bilateral breast cancer.