Aberrant Expression of p53 in Basal Cell Carcinomas and Squamous Cell Carcvinomas

Park, Young Min; Choi, Sung Woo; Cho, Baik Kee; Shim, Sang In

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The p53 gene mutations have been found in a variety of human skin cancers. To date most studies concerning p53 gene mutations in skin cancers focused on squamous cell carcinoma(SCC) and its precancerous lesions such as actinic keratosis and Bowen's disease, especially related to ultraviolet light, but few on basal cell carcinoma(BCC).
OBJECTIVE
This study was aimed to investigate the aberrant expression rates on p53 mutant gene in BCCs as well as in SCCs and their changes depending upon their clinicopathologic characteristics.
METHODS
An immunohistochemical study was employed using the mouse monoclonal antibody raised against recombinant human p53 in 30 BCCs and 16 SCCs. Also, clinical and histopathologic analyses for age, sex, site, duration and histopathologic classification were performed.
RESULTS
p53 immunoreactivity was observed in 57% of BCCs and 75% of SCCs. In BCCs P53 immnoreacticvity was increased by up to 61% in cases(28/30) developed on the sun-exposed area. In SCCs p53 immunoreactivity(89%) on non-sun-exposed area was unexpectantly higher than that(57%) on sun-exposed area. No significant correlation between p53 imunoreactivity and clinicopathologic characteristics in BCCs and SCCs was noted.
CONCLUSION
Mutations of p53 may play an important role of the pathogenetic sequence in a large part of the pathogenetic sequence in a large part of BCCs as well as SCCs.