Survivin expression levels as independent predictors of survival for osteosarcoma patients

Survivin expression has been detected in various cancers and correlations have been recognized between the level of expression of this gene in tumors and prognosis. However, the aforementioned authors did not evaluate correlations between prognosis and survivin expression levels using surgically resected samples. In this study, we retrospectively investigated outcomes by examining the correlations between expression of this gene and clinicopathological parameters. Biopsy and resected specimens from which paraffin-embedded tissues could be extracted, were available from 16 patients in our hospital. We used the RT-PCR method and conducted a densitometric analysis to determine the ratio of survivin relative to h-GAPDH as an internal marker. Expression of survivin mRNA was detected in all samples. There was a significant negative correlation between survivin expression levels and duration of follow up, in months, using the Spearman's rank for the initial biopsy samples (rho=-0.775, p<0.01) and those obtained after chemotherapy (rho=-0.687, p<0.01). Moreover, Cox multivariate regression identified the survivin expression levels in both biopsy and post-chemotherapy samples as independent predictors of survival. We conclude that survivin levels in both initial biopsy and post-chemotherapy samples are useful prognostic indicators.