Expression and clinical significance of PCNA and survivin in non-small cell lung cancer

Objective To investigate the expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and survivin gene in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and its influence on prognosis of patients with NSCLC. Methods The expression of PCNA and survivin in 92 specimens of patients with NSCLC was detected by SP immunohistochemistry. Its correlation to clinicopathologic features and prognosis of patients with NSCLC were analyzed. Results The positive rate of PCNA was 60.9% (56/92) in non-small cell lung cancer tissues. The expression of PCNA had no correlation to histological type,lymph node metastasis and TNMstage (P0.05),but was correlated to histological grade and tumor size of NSCLC. The positive rate of PCNA in NSCLC of grade Ⅲ was significantly higher than that in NSCLC of grade Ⅰ and grade Ⅱ (66.7% vs 52.6%,χ 2 =4.269,P=0.039);The positive rate of PCNA in tumor size of T3+T4 was significantly higher than that in tumor size of T3+T4 (75.8% vs 52.5%,χ 2 =4.789,P= 0.029) . The positive rate of survivin was 46.7 % (43/92) in non- small cell lung cancer tissues. The expression of survivin had no correlation to tumor size, lymph node metastasis and TNMstage, but was correlated to histological type and histological grade of NSCLC. The positive rate of survivin in NSCLC of grade Ⅲ was significantly higher than that in NSCLC of grade Ⅰ and grade Ⅱ(52.1% vs 37.5%,χ 2 =3.975,P=0.046). Univariate analysis showed that the overall survival rate in PCNA-positive or survivin-positive cases was significantly shorter than that in PCNA- negative or survivin-negative cases (P=0.025 and 0.033). Conclusion The expression of PCNA and survivin may indicate poor prognosis of NSCLC. Detecting PCNA and survivin with consideration of clinicopathological stage and histological grade may increase the accuracy of predicting prognosis of patients with NSCLC.