J Korean Surg Soc.  1998 Jul;55(1):65-69.

The Clinical Significance of p21 Expressionin Gastric Adenocarcinoma

• Kim SJ
• Son GS

Abstract

BACKGROUNDS: The p21 protein inhibits cyclin-dependent kinases and mediates cell-cycle arrest and cell differentiation.
METHODS
This study was performed in 61 patients with gastric adenocarcinoma to investigate the realtionship between p21 expression and clinicopathological findings, and the usefulness of p21 as a prognostic factor. Correlation was determined between p21 immunoreactivity by immunohistochemistry and clinicopathological features, including the clinical outcome.
RESULTS
Immunoreactivity for p21 was detected in 31 (50.8%) patients. There were no significant correlations between the presence or absence of p21 immunoreactivity and age, sex, site, tumor invasion, tumor size, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis, or stage except histologic subtype (P=0.002). Survival curves revealed that there was no significant difference of the prognosis between patients with p21 expression and those without p21 expression (P=0.836).
CONCLUSIONS
Immunohistochemical analysis of p21 was not useful for evaluating the prognosis and biological status of patients with gastric adenocarcinoma.

Keyword

p21 immunoreactivity; Gastric adencarcinoma

MeSH Terms

Adenocarcinoma*
Cell Differentiation
Cyclin-Dependent Kinases
Humans
Immunohistochemistry
Lymph Nodes
Neoplasm Metastasis
Prognosis
Cyclin-Dependent Kinases