Prognostic significance of p53 immunohistochemical expression in adenoid cystic carcinoma of the salivary glands: a meta-analysis

// Qinglin Li 1,3,* , Ping Huang 1,3,* , Chuanming Zheng 2,3 , Jiafeng Wang 2,3 and Minghua Ge 2,3 1 Department of Pharmacy, Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, East Banshan Road, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China 2 Department of Head and Neck Surgery, Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China 3 Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Head and Neck Tumor, Zhejiang Cancer Hospital, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Minghua Ge, email: // Keywords : adenoid cystic carcinoma, salivary glands, p53 expression, prognosis, meta-analysis Received : August 15, 2016 Accepted : January 06, 2017 Published : February 11, 2017 Abstract Adenoid cystic carcinoma of salivary glands is a rare adenocarcinoma and has been placed in “high-risk” category as poor long-term prognosis. The purpose of this study was to investigate p53 protein expression in adenoid cystic carcinoma of salivary glands and its correlation with clinicopathological parameters and prognosis. Literatures were searched from PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library and Web of Science, which investigated the relationships between p53 expression and pathological type, clinical stage, local recurrence, metastasis, nerve infiltration and overall survival. A total of 1,608 patients from 36 studies were included in the analysis. The results showed that p53-postive expression rate was 49% in adenoid cystic carcinoma of salivary glands (OR=10.34, 95%CI: 4.93-21.71, P < 0.0001). The p53-postive expression was closely related to tumor types (OR=0.30, 95%CI: 0.14-0.65, P < 0.0001). The tumor with solid histological subtype had a strong positive correlation with p53 expression. The combined analysis revealed that the p53-positive expression rate among patients in T1and T2 stage was 41.4%, compared to 53.2% among those in T3 and T4 stage. However, there was no significant correlation between tumor stage and p53 expression (OR=0.47, 95% CI: 0.17-1.29, P = 0.14). Besides, compared to patients with p53-negative expression, those with p53-positive expression had a greater chance of developing metastasis, local recurrence and nerve infiltration as well as poorer 5-year overall survival ( P < 0.01).In conclusion, the p53 expression is related to the survival of adenoid cystic carcinoma of salivary glands. It can be considered as the auxiliary detection index in treatment and prognosis of adenoid cystic carcinoma of salivary glands.