Gliomas: Correlation of Histologic Grade, Ki67 and p53 Expression with Patient Survival

Background: Gliomas are grouped into grades 1 to 4 on the basis of morphologic criteria. Grade is the mostsignificant prognostic factor determining survival, but various proliferation markers are being increasinglyemployed by histopathologists as adjuncts to conventional morphologic variables to determine prognosticbehavior of brain tumors. The most widely used and useful of these are MIB1 (Ki67) and p53.
Objective: Tocorrelate World Health Organization (WHO) grades of glial neoplasms and expression of MIB1 and P53 by thesetumors with patient survival at the end of one year. Material and
Methods: 50 consecutive cases with confirmeddiagnosis of various histologic types of glial neoplasms were included. Grading was done according to the WHOgrading system for CNS neoplasms. Immunohistochemical staining of p53 and MIB1 (Ki67) was performed andscores were calculated.
Results: A significant correlation was shown between WHO histologic grade and patientsurvival (p value:0.004) and a marginal correlation was seen between MIB1 score and patient survival (p value:0.233).
Conclusion: Histologic grade is the most important prognostic factor with respect to patient survival inglial neoplasms. Immunohistochemical staining with MIB1 and p53 may serve as an additional useful toolindetermining the clinical course in combination with and as an adjunct to tumor grade. However, the fact thatfollow-up was available in only twenty out of the fifty cases is a limitation of the present study.