Expression and Significance of Livin and Bcl-2 Protein in Primary Breast Cancer

Objective To study the expressions in primary breast carcinomas,clinic significance of Livin and the relation- ship between it and Bcl-2 protein as well.Methods The expression of Livin and Bcl-2 protein was studied in 90 breast carcino- ma samples,30 breast benign lesion samples as well as 15 adjacent normal tissues by SP immunohistochemical(IHC)analysis. Results The positive rates for Livin and Bcl-2 protein expression were 67.8%(61/90)and 65.6%(59/90)respectively in breast cancer tissues,and there was obvious difference when compared with cancer adjacent normal tissues and breast benign lesions.The ex- pression of Livin protein in breast cancer had nothing to do with tumor size,histologic type,histologic grade and lymph-node metasta- sis of Livin protein(P0.05),but rose with the increase of clinical grade of the cancer(P0.05).And the expression of Bcl-2 protein decreased sharply with histologic grade and lymph-node metastasis in breast cancer(P0.05).The protein expressions of Livin and Bcl-2 were correlated with one another(P0.05 )closely.Conclusions The over-expression of Livin gene in breast cancer tissues was coupled with pathological grade,which indicated it may play an important role in carcinogenesis and progression of breast cancer,and it should be a target gene in therapy of breast cancer.Livin and Bcl-2 may play synergetic roles in the process of carcinogenesis of breast carcinomas.