P53 Overexpression Impacts on the Prognosis of Laryngeal Squamous Cell Carcinomas

Objectives: To investigate the prognostic implications of p53 expression in the surgical margins of laryngealsquamous cell carcinomas.
Methods: Thirty one patients with T3-4N0M0 cancers with pathologically negativemargins were analyzed by immunohistochemistry (IHC) to detect expression of p53.
Results: The p53 positiverates by IHC in the surgical margin were 16.1% (5/31). In the p53 positive margin group, the recurrent ratewas higher than those without (80% vs 19.2%, P = 0.006). Also, the median free of disease period in the p53positive margin group was shorter than other group (22.2 vs 47.8 months, P < 0.0001).
Conclusions: We foundthat the overexpression of p53 can serve a prognostic role for both recurrence and disease-specific mortality inhead and neck squamous cell carcinoma. p53 expression could stratify patients, in an easy and inexpensive way,according to their risk of local or regional recurrence.