Nuclear survivin expression in small cell lung cancer

Abstract

Background/aim: Little evidence exists regarding a relationship between survivin expression and prognosis in small cell lung cancer (SCLC). We investigated the relationship between survivin expression, clinical characteristics and prognosis in SCLC patients.

Materials and methods: We retrospectively reviewed medical records of study patients and analyzed their tumor sections using nuclear survivin labeling index (LI).

Results: A significant correlation between nuclear survivin LI and clinical stage was found (p=0.012). In multivariate analysis, a significant association was found between survival and clinical stage (hazard ratio (HR)=2.09; 95 % confidence interval (CI)=1.08-4.31; p=0.027) but not between survival and nuclear survivin LI (HR=0.96; 95 % CI=0.91-1.02; p=0.2).

Conclusion: We did not find any positive relationship between nuclear survivin expression and survival in SCLC patients. Conversely, we found a positive relationship between clinical stage and nuclear survivin LI, which is considered to be useful in deciding treatment strategies.

Keywords: Small cell lung cancer; immunohistochemistry; labeling index; nucleus; survivin.