Vol.95 No.4 contentsPRACTICA OTO-RHINO-LARYNGOLOGICA
Vol. 95 No. 4 April 2002
Cell Proliferating Activity and p53 Protein Expression in
Laryngeal Carcinoma
-Comparison with Regard to the Extent of Tumor Progression-
Makoto Shirane and Tomohito Date
(National Kure Medical Center, Chugoku District Cancer Center)
Tsutomu Ueda and Takamasa Imai
(Hiroshima University)
The immunohistochemical expression of p53 protein and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and the number of argyrophilic nucleolar organizer regions (AgNORs) as well as the mean size of the nuclei were evaluated in seventy-five formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded specimens from the untreated patients with laryngeal carcinoma. The primary tumors were classified into forty-seven cases of an early group of T1, T2 and twenty-eight cases in an advanced group of T3, T4 according to the extent of tumor progression. Comparison was made of the above-mentioned parameters between the two groups. The cell proliferating activity measured by PCNA and AgNORs and the coefficient of variation in the mean size of nuclei were significantly increased in the advanced group compared with the early group. However, no significant correlation in the expression of p53 protein was found between the early group and the advanced group. These results suggest that the proliferating activity which highly related to the malignancy of tumor cells increases with tumor growth and that damage in the p53 tumor suppressor gene is concerned more with the early stage of tumor genesis than with tumor growth. Comparison by the presence or absence of neck lymph node metastasis in the advanced group showed no significant difference in the proliferating activity, expression of p53 protein and mean size of nuclei.
Key words : p53 protein, laryngeal cancer, PCNA, AgNORs, mean size of nuclei