Comparative study of p53 expression in primary invasive ductal carcinoma of the pancreas between Chinese and Japanese

Previous studies reported different frequencies of p53 expression between Japanese and Americans or Europeans. The present study was designed to clarify whether there is a significant difference in p53 expression and its clinical implications between Chinese and Japanese patients with primary invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) of the pancreas, p53 expression was studied in 39 Chinese and 47 Japanese patients, and immunostaining with the SAB method was performed using anti-p53 monoclonal antibody (DO-1) in formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded specimens. Clinical data were analyzed according to the International Union Against Cancer classification. p53 expression was seen in 71.8% of Chinese and in 48.9% of Japanese patients with IDCs of the pancreas (p < 0.05). The Chinese patients were significantly younger than the Japanese ones (p < 0.05), but there were no significant correlations between p53 immunoreactivity and age, gender, stage, and histopathological grade in separate analyses of the Chinese and Japanese patients. A comparison between them showed that in patients younger than 55 and 65 years old, the incidence of p53 expression was markedly lower in Japanese than in Chinese (p < 0.05), In Japanese patients, those with a p53-positive pancreatic cancer had a significantly lower survival rate than those with a p53-negative tumor, but there was no correlation between p53 expression and the prognosis of Chinese patients. The frequency of p53 expression in IDC of the pancreas is higher in Chinese than in Japanese patients, and the effect of p53 expression on prognosis is different between Chinese and Japanese patients.