Expression of survivin in squamous cell lung cancer and its correlation with prognosis

Abstract

There are outstanding studies on the importance of survivin and inhibition of apoptosis in many cancers, including lung. Evaluation of the relationship between survivin expression in lung cancer and prognosis is the aim of this study. A total of 50 patients with a diagnosis of squamous cell lung carcinoma were included in this study. Survivin levels that were obtained with IHC (immunohistochemical) and RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) methods from the tumor and metastatic lymph node tissues embedded in paraffin blocks were evaluated along with clinical parameters. The median age of the patients was 60 years (range 54-69). All patients were male and all of them were smokers. The mean duration of follow-up and disease-free survival was 42.08±22.46 months and 40.62±22.46 months, respectively. Significant associations were found among survivin levels in metastatic lymph nodes and duration of smoking (IHC and RT-PCR), angiolymphatic invasion (IHC), the number of mitosis (RT-PCR) (p= 0.05 and p= 0.05, p< 0.001, p= 0.02, respectively). Survivin showed statistically significant associations with angiolymphatic invasion and stage in multivariate analysis (p< 0.001, p= 0.04, respectively). An association was not found between survivin levels in tumor and lymph nodes and survival. Higher survivin levels in lymph nodes detected by IHC was associated with shorter survival but that didn’t reach statistical significance (65.22±5.16 vs 42.33±11.97, p= 0.72). Further larger studies done with larger numbers of patients are required in order to evaluate its effects in our society. © 2017, UHOD - Uluslararasi Hematoloji Onkoloji Dergisi. All rights reserved.