Abstract

In this study, we aimed to assess the correlation between serum anti-p53 antibodies and the overexpression of tumor p53 protein in patients with bladder tumor as well as its relationship with the clinical and pathologic findings.

Sixty-eight patients with transitional cell carcinoma of the urinary bladder (17Ta, 28 T1, 23 T2) were prospectively assessed. Serum anti-p53 antibodies were detected by ELISA using microtitre plates, covered by recombinant wild-type human p53 protein and control protein (Pharmacell, France). The expression of tumour p53 protein was assessed by immunohistochemistry performed on formalin fixed, paraffin embedded material utilising Streptavidin-Biotin Amplification and anti-p53 antibody (Zymed, USA). The correlation tests of Pearson and Spearman, and multivariate stepwise logistic regression analysis were used for statistical analysis. The median follow-up was 27 months.

The positiveness of anti-p53 antibody was detected in 26 patients (38%). Of these, 15 patients had high-stage (T2) tumor, one had TaG3 tumor and others had stage T1G3 tumor. The overexpression of tumor p53 protein was positive in 37 patients (54%), whereas 24 patients had a combination of serum anti-p53 antibody and the overexpression of tumor p53 protein (65%). The survival of the patients who had positive serum anti-p53 antibody was worse than the patients who had positive tumour p53 protein. There was a correlation between the presence of anti-p53 antibody and the tumor stage (p=0.000), grade (p=0.000), the overexpression of tumor p53 protein (p=0.000) and death (p=0.001).