Gul Naz Akhtar, Mahfooz ur Rahman, Saeed Akhtar Khan, Naseer Ahmed Chaudrhy.
p53 Immunostaining in Benign and Malignant effusions.
Pak J Med Sci Jan ;19(1):33-5.

Objective: To evaluate p53 immunostaining as a marker of malignancy in pleural and peritoneal effusions and to compare the results with HE staining. Design: Pleural and peritoneal effusion samples were obtained from patients suffering from benign and malignant diseases. H&E staining and p53 immunostaining were performed on smears prepared from these samples. Setting: The samples were obtained from patients admitted in Mayo Hospital, Services Hospital, Gulab Devi Chest Hospital and Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Oncology (INMOL). Subjects: One hundred cases having either pleural or peritoneal effusions were selected. Fifty of these cases were positive for malignant cells on H&E staining. Fifty cases contained only mesothelial cells. Main outcome measures: To compare the specificity and sensitivity of p53 immunostaining with HE stain as a diagnostic marker of malignancy. Results: Out of the 50 malignant cases, 31 (62%) were found to be p53 positive. None of the benign cases showed positive staining. p53 was found to have a specificity of 100%, sensitivity of 62%, a positive predictive value of 100% and a negative predictive value of 72.4%. Conclusions: p53 is a highly specific and moderately sensitive marker of malignancy.

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