[In situ hybrid detection of p16 mRNA in primary breast carcinoma: its clinicopathologic significance].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the expression of p16 mRNA in primary breast carcinoma and its clinicopathological significance. METHODS: In vitro transcriptional RNA probe labeled with biotin and in situ hybridization method were used in this study to detect p16 mRNA in the paraffin embedded tissue of human primary breast carcinoma from 120 cases. RESULTS: 85 breast carcinomas showed expression of p16 mRNA with a positive rate of 70.8%. The p16 mRNA expression was not obviously correlated with patient age, tumor size, estrogen and progesterone receptor status (P > 0.05), but the positive rate of 54.4% for the lymph node metastasis group was significantly lower than 85.7% of the non-metastasis group (P < 0.001). Moreover, the positive rate of 58.3% for the poor differentiate invasive duct carcinoma was also lower than that 89.7% for the well differentiated (P < 0.05). The patients after operation were followed up. The mortality of 25% (21/85) in the p16 mRNA positive group was significantly lower than that of the negative group 57% (20/35) (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Abnormal expression of p16 mRNA may play an important role in the development of human breast carcinoma.