ecancermedicalscience

Short Communication

Should all paediatric osteosarcoma patients be tested for germline TP53 variants? Insights from a single centre sarcoma unit from India

10 Sep 2026
Badira Cheriyalinkal Parambil, Rajiv Sarin, Sharmishtha Bhattacharya, Girish Chinnaswamy

Western studies report germline TP53 pathogenic variants in 5%–10% of paediatric osteosarcoma cases. Data from the Indian subcontinent are lacking. We retrospectively analysed 23 children (≤15 years) with osteosarcoma, unselected for personal or family history and treated between January 2020 and July 2025 using next generation sequencing cancer predisposition panels (26-, 84- and 94-gene). No patients had consanguinity or stigmata of syndromic predisposition, and only 17.4% had a family cancer history. Germline TP53 pathogenic/likely pathogenic variants were detected in 13% (n = 3). These findings support consideration of germline TP53 testing in paediatric osteosarcoma in low- and middle-income countries wherever feasible, though cost and access barriers remain.

Related Articles

Prasanth Srinivasan, Gargi Das, Balaji Thiruvengadam Kothandan, Gautam Vydia Vedagiri, Anand Raja, Venkatraman Radhakrishnan
M P Arun Krishnan, R Nandini Devi, Praveen Kumar Shenoy, Shoaib Nawaz, Abhilash Menon, Anu Mathew
Moushumi Suryavanshi, Prashant Mehta, Manoj Kumar, Saphalta Bhagmar, Vidit Kapoor, Dushyant Kumar, Sweta Mishra, Bhawna Chauhan