Survivin gene expression positively correlates with proliferative activity of cancer cells in esophageal cancer.

OBJECTIVE: The correlation between survivin gene expression and the occurrence of spontaneous apoptosis, proliferative activity of cancer cells, tumor angiogenesis, and abnormal p53 nuclear accumulation was evaluated in esophageal cancer.
METHODS: A total of 57 patients, on whom surgical esophageal resection had been performed between 1993 and 2000, were enrolled in this study. Total RNA was extracted from tumors and noncancerous epithelia. Expression levels of survivin and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) messenger RNA (mRNA) were analyzed quantitatively by real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (quantitative PCR). The proliferative activity of cancer cells, apoptotic cancer cells, microvessel density, and abnormal p53 nuclear accumulation were analyzed in these tumors.
RESULTS: The expression level of tumor survivin mRNA described as survivin/GAPDH (s/G) ratio was higher than that of noncancerous tissue (p = 0.0003), but did not correlate with lymph node metastasis, with the depth of tumor invasion, with the occurrence of apoptosis or with tumor angiogenesis. However, the tumor s/G ratio positively correlated with the proliferative activity and p53 nuclear accumulation in cancer cells. The 5-year survival rate of 53 patients was 37% (we excluded 4 patients who died from operative complications from this survival study). The 5-year survival rate of 27 patients with a high tumor s/G ratio (28.6%) was lower than that of 26 patients with a low tumor s/G ratio (46.2%, p = 0.041). High tumor s/G ratio was detected as an important prognostic factor independent of tumor stage.
CONCLUSION: Detection of survivin mRNA by quantitative PCR provided us with important prognostic and biological information regarding esophageal cancer patients. Copyright 2003 S. Karger AG, Basel