Evaluating the Correlation Between the Survival Rate of Patients with Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma and Expression of p53 and Cyclin D1 Biomarkers Along with Other Prognostic Factors.

OBJECTIVE: In the present study, we aimed to evaluate the relationship between the survival rate of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and expression of two biomarkers along with age, gender, tumor margin, depth of invasion, site of tumor, tumor diameter, tumor grade, number of involved nodes, and vascular invasion.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this retrospective survey, medical records of patients referred to the Shohada-e Tajrish hospital during 2001 to 2005 were reviewed and subjects with definite diagnosis of SCC were included. Required data were extracted from the patients' records, and their prepared paraffin-embedded tissue blocks were collected under supervision of two pathologists. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) analysis was performed at the Firoozgar hospital in Tehran, Iran.

RESULTS: The studied population included 20 men (74%) and 7 women (26%). The mean age at diagnosis was 58 ± 22. Results showed significantly higher survival rates in women compared to men (85.7 vs. 40%) (p = 0.001) and in patients with well-differentiated tumors compared to poor-differentiated cases (20 vs. 5%) (p = 0.004). No significant relationship was found between p53 expression and prognostic factors like age, gender, the site, grade, and size of the tumor, depth of invasion, involvement of lymph nodes, and vascular invasion.

CONCLUSION: Positivity of p53 and cyclin D1 was not found to be predictive of survival in patients with esophageal SCC which might be due to the small sample size of the present survey. Further investigations with larger sample populations and longer follow-ups are required to evaluate this correlation.