Measurment and evaluation of serum anti p53 antibody levels in patients with lung cancer at its initial presentation

ABSTRACT

The present study aimed to detect and evaluate anti p53 Ab in patients newly diagnosed lung cancer and its relation to histological type, stage of the disease and response to therapy. For this purpose, 48 lung cancer patients at first presentation. 15 patients proven to have pulmonary disease other than lung cancer and 10 apparently healthy subjects were selected for this study. Ten patients from lung cancer group were followed up after treatment. ELISA procedure was used to detect serum anti p53 antibodies in all subjects. There was statistically insignificant difference between cases with positive and negative anti p53 as regards the mean age and sex. Also percentage of positive anti p53 Ab cases in smokers and those accompanied with pleural effusion were significantly higher than in non smokers and those with no pleural effusion. It was found that 27% of lung cancer patients in this study were anti p53 Ab positive with no cell type difference, as there was no statistical significant difference between different histopathological types as regards the positivity of anti p53 [25% squamous cell carcinoma. 20% adenocarcinoma, 33.3% large cell carcinoma and 25% small cell carcinoma] nor regarding the disease stage. Anti p53 Ab was never detected in association with pulmonary diseases other than carcinoma or in control sera. Ten patients [3 positive for anti p53 and 7 negative] were randomly selected where anti p53 was repeated after 6 months of chemotherapy that led to either partial or complete remission of disease, one of them became negative, the other two positive cases showed reduced titer, in already 7 negative cases before treatment, none of them could find anti p53 Ab after treatment so anti p53 Ab could be a useful tool for oncologists in their attempt to analyze the patient response to therapy