p53 protein and vimentin in invasive ductal NOS breast carcinoma--relationship with survival and sites of metastases.

p53 protein and vimentin status were available from immunocytochemical studies of 253 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded invasive ductal not otherwise specified (NOS) carcinomas from patients for whom follow-up data was also on file. For the 127 node-negative patients, multivariate analysis showed a highly significant correlation between p53 and vimentin (P < 0.001), a strong correlation between vimentin and probability of survival to 90 months but only a weak association between p53 and survival to 90 months. p53 also never entered trees of prognostic indicators derived using stepwise regression with Kaplan-Meier statistics for node-negative and node-positive subgroups, while vimentin status dominated the node-negative trunk. In addition, p53 and vimentin status were analysed versus the site of the first distant metastasis for node-negative and node-positive patients. Analysis by p53 status showed no significant effect on visceral metastases. In contrast, vimentin-positive primaries metastasised twice (and in node-negative patients, 3.5 times) as often to lung, liver and brain as did the vimentin-negative primaries. Both p53-positive and vimentin-positive tumours showed a significantly lower tendency to metastasise to the bone than did their negative counterparts.