Expression of survivin in lung cancer and the relationship with cell apoptosis and proliferation

Objective To investigate the expression of survivin in lung cancer,and to evaluate the relationships between survivin protein and clinicopathologic characteristics,and cell apoptosis or proliferation.Methods Expressions of survivin and Ki67 were immunostained in tumor tissues of 83 patients,and TNUEL method was used to detect the cell apoptosis.The correlations between expression of survivin and clinicalpathological characteristics,cell apoptosis and proliferation were assessed.Results The positive expression rates of survivin in lung cancer and lung benign lesion tissues were 62.7% and 6.25% respectively,there was a significant difference between them(P0.05).Survivin expression in lung cancer was not related to the histologictype,pathological grade and lymphnode metastasis(P0.05),but correlated with TNM stage (P 0.05).The average apoptosis index(AI) of survivin-positive cases was significantly higher than that of survivin-negative ones(3.93±1.46 vs 2.36±1.21) (P0.01).There were negative correlations between suvivin expression and AI(r=-0.6008,P0.01).The average proliferation index(AI) of survivin-positive cases was significantly lower than that of survivin-negative ones(32.47±22.31 vs 47.31±28.06) (P0.01).There were positive correlations between suvivin expression and PI(r=0.4885,P0.01).Conclusion Overexpression of survivin in lung cancer cells may inhibit cell apoptosis and promote cell proliferation,and it was suggested survivin may be involved in oncogenesis.