Expression of survivin in esophageal cancer: Correlation with the prognosis and response to chemotherapy

Survivin, a new member of the inhibitor-of-apoptosis (IAP) family, has been reported to be expressed in many cancers but not in differentiated normal tissue, Its expression in esophageal cancer, however, has not been reported . We investigated 51 esophageal cancers and their adjacent normal epithelia l tissues for mRNA expression of survivin by RT-PCR, The survivin expressio n in esophageal cancer tissue was significantly higher than that in normal esophageal tissue (0.211 +/- 0.226 vs. 0.057 +/- 0.135, p < 0.0001), pN4 tu mors had significantly higher survivin expression than the pNO-3 tumors (p = 0.0093), Fourteen patients with advanced esophageal cancer had received c hemotherapy prior to surgery. The survivin expression in the cancer tissue in patients who achieved a partial response (PR) was significantly lower th an that in patients with no change (NC) and in patients with progressive di sease (PD; 0.099 +/- 0.134 vs. 0.320 +/- 0.222, p = 0.0434). The median sur vival for patients with high survivin expression (9.0 months) was less than that for patients with low survivin group expression (30.0 months, p = 0.0 023). Survivin expression was one of the significant predictors of survival on univariate analysis (hazard ratio 2.471; 95% confidence interval 1.104- 5.533). The results suggest that survivin expression may provide prognostic information in patients with esophageal cancer. (C) 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.