Analyse de la rupture de tolérance vis-à -vis de la p53 dans le cancer du sein en Tunisie

Breast cancer is the first malignant pathology among tunisian women. The delay between the first symptom and the diagnoses is often very long, which explains the predominance of tumors with great size and frequent lymph node envadement. This situation was followed up for analysing the tolerance breaking against p53 anti-oncogen. Our investigation is based on 108 patients aged between 23 and 67 years diagnosed at the chemotherapy service of Salah Azaiez Institute in Tunis from April to July 2002. We studied the p53 alteration in breast cancer by serological (circulating anti-p53 antibodies) and immunohistochemical (accumulating p53 in tumor cells) tests. Considering both methods, we showed that the p53 protein was altered in about 40% of the cases of mammary carcinoma studied. Positive immunohistochemical test correlates with the high histological grade of the tumor and the lymph node envadement, as well as the absence of steroid hormon receptors correlates with anti-p53 positive the serology. It appears that the tolerance towards p53 depends on several factors, which implies that the anti-p53 serology is not for interest in diagnosis of breast cancer for Tunisian patients.