RESUMO
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>Serum p53 protein overexpression was detected in population exposed to traffic exhaust gas to study the relation between traffic exhaust gas and the increased risk in p53 gene mutation.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Serum p53 protein expression was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Relationship between different types of job and serum p53 protein overexpression were studied by pearson Chi-square tests.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Results on serum p53 protein overexpression on jobs outside of office (5.74%) were not significantly higher than jobs inside the office. However, it suggested that traffic police men (12.12%) working outside of office, with whose length of service longer than 30 years had a significant overexpression of serum p53 protein than the others (5.36%) whose length of service was less than 30 years (P < 0.05, OR = 2.43, 95% CI: 1.11 - 5.33). Overexpression rate of p53 protein appeared to be 6.89% in the group whose average weekly exposure hours were more than 40 hours, which was significant higher than the group whose exposed hours were less than 40 hours (P < 0.05, OR = 1.71, 95% CI: 1.03 - 2.81).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The result suggested that traffic exhaust gas was likely to cause mutation of p53 gene and increasing the incidence of lung cancer.</p>