Value of tissue markers p27kip1, MIB‐1, and CD44s for the pre‐operative prediction of tumour features in screen‐detected prostate cancer

Abstract
The pre‐operative prediction of prognostic tumour features in the radical prostatectomy specimen using routine clinicopathological variables remains limited. The present study evaluated the predictive value of the cell‐cycle protein p27kip1, the proliferation marker MIB‐1, and the cell‐adhesion protein CD44s, determined on the diagnostic needle biopsy of asymptomatic men screened for prostate cancer. Of 81 screen‐detected prostate cancers, representative biopsy cores and matched radical prostatectomy specimens were immunohistochemically stained for these tissue markers. Conventional pre‐operative and post‐operative clinicopathological variables were assessed and cancers were divided according to a validated tumour classification model (potentially harmless, clinically significant). Low (kip1 expression, high (≥10%) MIB‐1 expression, and low (kip1, MIB‐1, and CD44s, respectively. The concordance in tissue marker assessment between the biopsy specimen and matched radical prostatectomy specimens was low for all three. The positive predictive value (PPV) of p27kip1 was 90.0%, remarkably higher than that of MIB‐1 and CD44s (41.2% and 52.0%, respectively), indicating that a low radical prostatectomy p27kip1 score is expected if the biopsy p27kip1 score is low. Logistic regression analysis revealed that biopsy Gleason score (pkip1 assessment (pkip1 expression were found to have clinically significant disease after radical prostatectomy. The assessment of p27kip1 in the biopsy specimen might thus assist in distinguishing between potentially aggressive and potentially non‐aggressive disease in prostate cancer screening. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.