Expression of P16 and KI-67 in cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and carcinoma: An institute based study

Abstract

Background: Cervical cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer death in Indian women Cervical cancer screening programme worldwide are moving from primary cytology to human papilloma virus (HPV) DNA testing, which is the major risk factor for cervical carcinoma. Objectives: To study the expression of P16 and KI-67 in cervical intraepithelial lesions and carcinomas and to calculate diagnostic accuracy of these biomarkers as compared to routine histopathology findings on equivocal cases Material and Methods: Evaluation for p16 and ki-67 immunoexpression was done in 102 cervical tissue samples. Informed consent, details of the patient regarding age, occupation, religion, parity, symptoms, any prior abnormal pap test, HPV DNA test if any, etc. were taken before procuring the samples. Results: The benign lesions were negative for both p16 and ki-67 immunoexpression whereas the premalignant lesions showed increasing positivity with the higher histological grade. All the malignant lesions were positive for ki 67 and p16 except for one case The specificity was highest when both the markers were used together. Conclusion: Correlation of p16 and ki-67 biomarkers and histopathology findings increases the diagnostic accuracy of premalignant and malignant cervical lesions which may be useful in cases with equivocal histologic features Keywords: Cervical intra epithelial neoplasia, Pap smear, Histopathology.