ROLE OF p16 AND Ki67 BIOMARKERS IN CERVICAL CANCER: A REVIEW

Cervical cancer is one of the most common and dangerous diseases in India and even globally which accounts for around 5% deaths per annum. Screening of cervical cancer is the only step which is proven to be most significant in prevention from high mortality rates. There are various types of techniques developed till date like liquid based cytology, HPV DNA testing and Pap tests which are helpful in screening of cervical cancer, but such techniques are associated with some kind of limitations related to sensitivity and specificity. It leads to the need of some novel technique which can provide results with high sensitivity and specificity. In the research for the same, there are many biomarkers which are developed till date. In this literature review, we will study characteristic features of p16 which acts as a cell cycle regulatory protein that has the ability to induce cell cycle arrest and one other Ki-67 which acts as cell proliferation marker. They could not co-express in the same cervical epithelial cells under physiological conditions. The co-expression of these two molecules shows that HR-HPV inflammation causes a disruption of the cell cycle and indicates the existence of high-grade cervical epithelial lesions. The rates of p16 and Ki67 expression were shown to be closely related to the occurrence of cervical lesions. In this review, along with characteristics of p16 and Ki-67, we will study the significance of p16 and Ki-67 dual-staining technique which showed some good results in efficacy of screening of cervical cance