University Publications

Introduction: p63 is a member of p53 family and known to be a marker of the myoepithelial cells. In breast cancer (BC) pathology, myoepithelial cells are indicative of the tumor invasiveness. The presence of myoepithelial cells is not always easily appreciated by routine Hematoxylin and Eosin stain. The use of p63 immunohistochemistry is a valuable tool to evaluate local invasiveness, precisely, and to differentiate between in situ and invasive carcinoma of the breast. In Sudan, detection P63 using IHC in BC, was not investigated before Objective: The aim of this study is to detect p63 biomarker in breast cancer by using immunohistochemistry technique. Materials and Methods: This is a descriptive retrospective cross-sectional study that was conducted between January 2022 to October 2022, at the Faculty of Medical Laboratory Science-Al-Neelain University and Radiation and isotope center of Khartoum (RICK).p 63 immunohistochemistry was performed in sixty Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples of the patients with different lesions of the breast. Forty samples were confirmed histopathologically to have malignant breast lesions, twenty were assessed to be have benign lesions, the later were used as controls. Data was analyzed using was tested by chi-squared test. This study was reviewed and ethically approved by Al-Neelian University Ethical Review Board. Results: Sixty breast biopsies were included in this study. Histopathologically, 40(67 %) samples were malignant and 20 (33%) samples were benign. Among the malignant tumours, 26/40 (65%) of the samples were invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC), 4/40 (10 %)were invasive lobular carcinoma(ILC) and 10/40 (25%) were carcinoma in situ(CIS).Regarding histological grades , the data of 10 samples was not available , 7/40 (23%) were grade I , 9/40 (30%) were grade II and 14/40 (47%) were grade III .The presence of p63 was detected in 21/40 (52.5%) , 20/20 (100%) of the malignant tumours and benign tumours , respectively (P~ value 0.000) . In Histological types of the malignant tumour, p63 was detected in 11/26 (42.3%) IDC, 10/10(100%) CIS, among ILC 4/0 no sample was positive for p63 (P-value ~0.000). In different histological grades, p63 was detected in 7/7 (100%) grade I, 4/9 (44%) grade II and grade 14/0 grade III, respectively (P- value~0.000). Conclusion: This study concluded that there is significant association in expression of p63 between benign and malignant tumours of the breast, with high frequency of the marker in benign tumours. It is also concluded that p63 is more frequent in grade I of the breast cancer among Sudanese patients.