RESUMO
p53 mutations have been reported to correlate with prognosis and response to therapy in patients with different tumor types. However, although p53 status is related to the primary tumor aggressiveness, an association between its expression and specific metastatic pattern has not yet been investigated. We immunohistochemically analyzed p53 (Pab1801) and ki67 (mib1) primary tumor expression in a series of advanced breast cancer patients presenting a selected pattern of distant metastases at the time of first diagnosis. Forty-eight percent of the overall series was classified as p53 positive while 22% as mib1 positive tumors. The overall agreement between p53 and mib1 expression was statistically significant (p = 0.03). While mib1 primary tumor expression did not show any association with the type of metastasis, p53 positivity was significantly higher in patients with soft tissue metastasis than in patients with bone or viscera metastasis (p = 0.002). No association with the probability of clinical response or different overall survival was found for patients with different p53 or mib1 status either in the overall series of patients or in subgroups of cases with different sites of distant metastasis.