Correlation of Neovascularization, Lymph Node Metastasis and p53 Expression in Squamous Cell Carcinoma of Lung

Tumor growth and metastasis require neovascularization which is a process of generating new capillary blood vessels. So, inhibition of neovascularization may provide therapeutic potential to patients having angiogenesis-denpendent cancer and accurate estimation of it can be used to predict prognosis of them. In histologic sections, neovascularization (angiogenesis) is determined by intratumoral microvesael density. Also, p53 is a tumor-suppressor gene found on chromosome 17p, and alterations(missense mutation or deletion) within the coding sequences of the gene are among the most frequent genetic changes detected in human neoplasms. The mutated product of p53 is a protein with abnormal conformation, impaired DNA-binding, and prolonged half-life, the latter of which results in immunohistochemically detectable levels within nuclei in nearly all neoplasms showing p53 gene mutation. To investigate the interrelationship between tumor neovascularization, clinical stage, lymph node metastasis, and p53 expression rate in squamous cell carcinoma of lung, which is one of leading cause of cancer death in Korea, we analyzed 54 cases by counting the number of microvessel and expression rate of p53 which were immunohistochemically stained. Lymph node metastasis group showed higher neovasularization than metastais free one(p=0.008), and microvessel counts increased with increasing clinical stage. However, p53 expression rate is statistically insignificant between two groups(p=0.86). Also, neovascualrization was not correlated with p53 expression rate. Thus, neovascularization in aquamous cell carcinoma of lung may be a valuable parameter of prognosis and these results support the idea that inhibition of angiogenesis can be a therapeutic method in squamous cell carcinoma of lung. And, p53 expression rate in aqumous cell carcinoma of lung is independent of other prognostic factors such as clinical stage, and presence or absence of lymph node metastasis.ope