Expression of Survivin in gastric cancer and its clinicopathological significance

Objective To study the expression of inhibitor of apoptosis protein Survivin in gastric carcinoma and its correlation with clinicopathological feature and prognosis.Methods Immunohistochemical staining of Survivin was performed by the standard streptavidin-peroxidase (SP) techenique for the paraffin sections of 92 gastric cancers. The relationship between the Survivin expression and the clinicopathological parameter was analyzed. Kaplan-Meier method was used to investigate the correlaton between Survivin expression and survival rate of the patients for whom long term follow up data were available. Results The positive rate of Survivin in gastric carcinoma was 37.0 % (39/92), no expression of Survivin was detected in normal gastric tissues. Significant relationship was found between Survivin expression and histological differentiation grade, tumor depth, lymph node metastasis, TMN stage of gastric carcinoma. The 5-year survival rate of patients with Survivin-positive tumors was significantly lower than that of patients with Survivin-negative tumors ( 26.5 % vs 51.7 %, P 0.05 , log-rank test). Conclusion Survivin is a member of inhibitor of apoptosis protein family that could serve as an index of maligancy and prognostic parameter of worse outcome.