ErbB2 and p53 expression as predictive factors in high-grade osteosarcoma

Background: overexpression and gene amplification of her-2 have been shown to be associated with poor prognosis in many cancers. studies have revealed that her-2 overexpression is associated with poor prognosis in osteosarcoma. the object of the current study is to assess the correlation of her-2 or p53 overexpression with the histological response to preoperative chemotherapy and event-free survival methods: we performed immunohistochemical staining (her-2 and p53) on paraffin-embedded tissue obtained from 17 patients whom were treated preoperatively with 3 cycles of cisplatin 75-100 mg/m2 (day 1) + doxorubicin 25 mg/m2 (days 1-3). membranous and cytoplasmic staining for her-2 was separately done and a more than 25% staining was considered positive. p53 was categorized as positive, weakly positive and negative. the patients were categorized according to chemotherapy response (huvos grading) good response (grade 3-4) and poor response (grade 1-2). results: no positive membranous her-2 staining was detected. no relationship between cytoplasmic staining and chemotherapy response was found (p=0.662). expression ofp53 did not correlate with histological response or patient's eventfree survival. cox-proportional hazards regression analysis was performed to estimate possible risk factors (sex, age, her-2, p53, response) for event-free survival only histological response was a significant risk factor (p=0.024). conclusion: overexpression of her-2 and p53 in high-grade osteosarcoma was not predictive of response to preoperative chemotherapy. in relation to event-free survival, only good response to chemotherapy was found to be a statistically significant prognostic factor