Background: It has been suggested that p53 plays an important part in gastric carcinogenesis but the data remain inconclusive.
Methods: Alteration of the tumour suppressor gene p53 was prospectively investigated by immunohistochemistry in 168 primary gastric cancers.
Results: Positive staining, indicative of gene mutations, was detected in 34 tumours (20.2 per cent). No correlation was observed between expression of p53 and various clinicopathological factors, including age, sex, tumour site, gross type, tumour size, depth of invasion, lymph node metastases, distant metastases, and tumour node metastasis stage. However, p53 overexpression was different between intestinal and diffuse type gastric cancer. Survival analysis revealed a significant survival disadvantage of p53 expression in diffuse type gastric cancer (P=0.039) but not in the intestinal type. Multivariate analysis of all 168 patients revealed that independent predictors of recurrent disease included age, invasion depth and nodal involvement but not p53 expression.
Conclusion: The presence of p53 overexpression may identify a subset of more aggressive tumours with a poor prognosis in diffuse type gastric cancer.