Clinicopathological Investigation of Tumor Angiogenesis and p53 Protein Expression in Tubular Adenocarcinoma of the Pancreas

Shuichi Fujioka, Kazuhiko Yoshida, Satoru Yanagisawa, Yasuki Unemura, Susumu Kobayashi, Takeyuki Misawa, Teruaki Aoki and Yoji Yamazaki

Deparment of Surgery, The Jikei University School of Medicine

Expression of p53 (to calculate the p53 labelling index: p53 LI) and CD34 (to calculate intratumoral microvessel density; IMD) was immunohistochemically investigated in 97 specimens of surgically resected tubular adenocarcinoma of the pancreas. And these parameters were analyzed together with patient outcome and the clinicopathological findings. Univariate analysis revealed eight significant factors: tumor site, tumor size (ts), venous invasion (v), intrapancreatic neural invasion (ne), pancreatic cut-end (pw), stage, p53 protein expression, and IMD, and a multivariate analysis yielded two independent prognostic indicators: pw and IMD (p<0.05). Comparison of hepatic recurrence and clinicopathological factors revealed that both IMD and p53 protein expression were significantly correlated with the frequency of hepatic recurrence and venous invasion (p<0.05). The data also showed a good correlation between p53 protein expression and IMD (p=0.0004). Thus, the probability was suggested that p53 abnormalites are likely to influence postoperative hepatic metastasis by facilitatng tumor angiogenesis and venous invasion.

Key words
pancreatic cancer, prognostic factor, hepatic metastasis, intratumoral microvessel density, p53

Reprint requests
Shuichi Fujioka Deparment of Surgery 1, Jikei University School of Medicine 3-5-8 Nishi-shinbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo, 105-8461 JAPAN

Accepted
October 31, 2000

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