Association between p53 mutation and clinicopathological features of non-small cell lung cancer

Genetic alterations in exons 5-8 of the p53 gene, determined bysingle-strand conformation polymorphism and sequencing analyses, and theclinicopathological characteristics of 108 patients with non-small celllung cancer were compared. Mutations in this gene were found in 37 of the108 patients (34%): in 30% (23/76) of those with adenocarcinomas, 46%(12/26) of those with squamous cell, 33% (1/3) of those with large cell and33% (1/3) of those with adenosquamous carcinomas. No associations betweenthe incidence of p53 mutations and the histological or cytological subtypesof adenocarcinomas were found. The analysis of types of mutations, however,showed that GC transversion was relatively common in papillary and clarasubtypes, whereas it accounted for only 17% at most of p53 mutations intubular and bronchial surface epithelial cell subtypes of adenocarcinomas.Univariate analyses revealed that large tumor size, high nodal stage andpositive vascular invasion of non-small cell lung cancers, and high nodalstage and high-grade nuclear atypia of adenocarcinomas were associatedsignificantly with p53 mutations. Multivariate analyses showed that thetumor sizes of non-small cell lung cancer correlated with p53 mutationswith marginal significance (P = 0.099) whereas nuclear atypia ofadenocarcinomas correlated significantly (P = 0.028). No differencesbetween the overall or relapse-free survival rates of patients with andwithout p53 mutations in non-small cell lung cancers or adenocarcinomaswere found. These findings indicate that p53 mutations in adenocarcinomasof the lung are associated with the malignant phenotype of tumor cells, butnot with patient survival.