Summary
p53 mutations are known to occur frequently in human cancers, including gastric carcinomas. Previous studies of its incidence in gastric carcinomas had shown a varying incidence ranging from a low of 4% to as high as 57%. In this study, 42 cases of gastric carcinomas were analyzed for p53 using a commercially available mouse monoclonal antibody in routinely formalin-fixed paraffin-ombedded tissue sections. These included 22 intestinal-type (7 well/moderately differentiated and 15 poorly differentiated), 16 diffuse-type and 4 mixed. Altogether, 60% of our cases stained positively for p53. Overall, well/moderately differentiated intestinal-type carcinomas stained more frequently for p53 than poorly differentiated intestinal-type carcinomas (p<0.075). A comparison between the incidence in diffuse-type (69%) and intestinal type (55%) was unremarkable. p53 staining was also present in 3 of the 4 early cases studied. The results suggest that p53 mutations play an important role in carcinogenesis in gastric carcinoma and further implies that p53 mutation may be an early occurrence during tumor transformation.
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