Objective: To evaluate a possible association between clinical outcome of patients with oligodendroglioma and expression of 2 cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors, p21/Cip-1 (p21) and p27/Kip-1 (p27), and of DNA topoisomerase II-alpha (Ki-S1), which has been recently used as a marker of cellular proliferation.
Design: Ninety-one specially selected patients with cerebral oligodendrogliomas treated with surgery and radiotherapy were studied retrospectively. Tumor specimens were immunohistochemically examined with antibodies to p21, p27, and Ki-S1. A computerized color image analyzer was used to count immunostained nuclei.
Results: The mean Ki-S1 labeling index (LI) was found to be significantly prominent for World Health Organization (WHO) high-grade tumors (9.5% vs. 3.2% for WHO low-grade tumors). In contrast, the mean p27 LI was significantly higher for low-grade tumors (43.3% vs 25.7% for high-grade tumors). The number of p21-positive cases and the mean p21 LI were found to be relatively equal for low- and high-grade tumors. For low-grade oligodendrogliomas, the progression-free and overall survival times were found to be significantly shorter for tumors with p27 LIs less than 20%. For high-grade oligodendrogliomas, survival times were significantly reduced for tumors with Ki-S1 LIs greater than 10%. Regression-tree analysis identified 4 groups of oligodendrogliomas with distinctly different outcomes: (1) 32 patients with low-grade tumors and p27 LIs greater than 20%; (2) 14 patients with low-grade tumors and p27 LIs less than 20%; (3) 25 patients with high-grade tumors and Ki-S1 LIs less than 10%; and (4) 20 patients with high-grade tumors and Ki-S1 LIs greater than 10%.
Conclusions: Immunoreactivity for Ki-S1 and p27 was found to be useful for further subdividing oligodendroglioma prognoses among low-grade and high-grade tumors. It seems unlikely that p21 immunohistochemistry will be of value for determining clinical outcomes for patients with oligodendrogliomas.