Expressions of survivin and caspase-9 in human primary hepatocellular carcinoma tissues and their significances

Objective To study the expressions of survivin and caspase-9 in human primary hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) tissues and their relationship with apoptosis.Methods Immunohistochemical staining was uesed to detect the expressions of survivin and caspase-9 in paraffin sections of 96 cases including 42 HCC tissues,42 paired adjacent noncancerous tissues and 12 normal liver tissues. Apoptosis was detected by TUNEL.Results No immunoreactivity of survivin was seen in normal liver tissues.The positive rates of survivin in HCC and paired adjacent noncancerous tissues were 73.81% and 4.76%,respectively,there was significant difference between two groups(P0.01). The positive rates of caspase-9 in normal tissues,paired adjacent noncancerous tissues and HCC tissues were 83.33%,80.95% and 47.62%,respectively,and the positive rate of caspase-9 in HCC tissues was significantly lower than those in the other two kinds of tissues (P0.05),but the expression of caspase-9 in paired adjacent noncancerous tissues had no difference compared with normal tissues (P0.05).The expressions of survivin and caspase-9 in HCC tissues were not associated with age,sex and the size of tumor,but they were directly associated with tumor histological grade and metastasis.Conclusion High expression of survivin in HCC may inhibit apoptosis through depressing the expression of caspase-9,and it is an indicator of independent poor prognosis.