Study of p53 gene over expression as a prognostic marker in squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity

The present study entitled ”Study of p53 gene expression as a prognostic marker in squamous cell carcinoma of oral cavity” was conducted in the department of pathology SRMSIMS Bareilly, 66 cases diagnosed on histopathology as squamous cell carcinoma of oral cavity from Jan 2016 to Jan 2017 were included in the study. Various parameters analysed for each case included age, gender, site, history of tobacco chewing, smoking &, alcohol consumption, histopathological grade of tumor and p53 expression. The patients age ranged from 24 to 85 years with mean age; 52.09 years and median age; 53 years. Maximum no of patients were male 54(81.8%) and 12 (18.2%) were female. Male: female ratio was 9:2. The most common site of presentation was lateral border of tongue (34.8). In the present study 89.4% were tobacco chewers, 72.7% were alcoholics and 57.6% were smokers.34 cases (51.5%) were diagnosed as well differentiated, 26 cases(39.4%) as moderately differentiated and 6 cases (9.1)% as poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinoma. The p53 expression was observed in 41(62.1%) of cases. The expression of p53 increased with the grade of tumor. The positivity being 17(50%) in cases of well differentiated, 19(73%) in moderately differentiated and 5(83%) in poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinoma. In present study p53 expression is found to be significantly related with tobacco chewing (p value= 0.034), smoking (p value= 0.0046) and tumor grade (p value=0.030). However no association was found with alcohol consumption (p value=0.917) the increasing prevalence of p53 expression with increasing grade of tumor suggests that it can be used as a prognostic indicator in oral cavity cancers.