Immunohistochemical Assessment of P53 Protein and its Correlation with Clinicopathological Characteristics in Breast Cancer Patients

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, containing approximately one third of all illness in women. Changes in p53 genes exist in 20-40% of aggressive breast cancer. Mutant protein of p53 has greater stability because longer half time than the wild type protein that can be detected by Immunohistochemistry (IHC) technique. The aim of this study was to detect expression of p53 protein in tissue samples of breast cancer patients and correlate it with other Clinicopathological characteristics of breast cancer patients. The study comprised 104 tumor samples of breast cancer patients. Immunohistochemistry technique was used for detecting the expression of p53 protein in breast tissues. Positive staining of p53 was found in thirty patients (28.84%), and negative staining of p53 was found in seventy-four (71.15%) patients. There was no significant correlation between p53 immunostaining with clinicopathological parameters like grade, stage, tumor size, age of menarche, histological type, family history, and age of first pregnancy, but there was significant correlation between p53 staining with age (p-value=0.000). Spearman's rho was used for assessment of statistical dependence between age and p53 (Correlation Coefficient=0.417, p-value=0.002). Also, there was significant difference between age in p53 positive and negative group (p-value <0.05), but there was no significant difference between other clinicopathological characteristics in breast cancer patients. In conclusion, immunohistochemical method proves to be reliable in determining the status of p53 protein. Besides, the result of this study showed that p53 nuclear accumulation can increase with aging in breast cancer patients.