Table 3

Anti-p53 negative patients do not become positive with recurrent disease

Current

Anti-p53 status

Current anti-p53

disease status

at diagnosis

status

Nonactive disease

38/38 negative

38/38 negative

Active disease

21/22 negative

22/22 negative

Sixty patients who were negative for p53 autoantibodies had also had a plasma sample taken within 30 days of their primary diagnosis of breast cancer. To determine whether antibody status at diagnosis might have been predictive of later disease behaviour (ie independent of the current negative status), we compared two patient subgroups: patients with current nonactive disease and patients with current active disease. With one exception, all patients were antibody negative within 30 days of initial diagnosis. This showed that recurrent disease is highly unlikely to induce a humoral anti-p53 response in those patients who were initially antibody negative.

Metcalfe et al. Breast Cancer Res 2000 2:438   doi:10.1186/bcr91