Survivin expression in laryngeal squamous cell carcinomas and its prognostic implications.

Abstract

We examined the expression of survivin using immunohistochemistry in 102 cases of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC). Overall, 65.7% (67 out of 102) of tumors were positive for survivin expression and significantly associated with tumor site, poor differentiation, tumor size, lymph node metastasis and advanced stage. Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that survivin expression was significantly associated with shorter disease-free and overall survival respectively. When survivin expression and clinical stage were combined, patients with both survivin-positive and advanced stage (III, IV) revealed poorer disease-free and overall survival when compared with the other cases (p = 0.0002 and p = 0.0002, respectively). Additionally, in early stage (I, II) cases, survivin expression also showed a significant prognostic trend for disease-free and overall survival (p = 0.0727 and p = 0.0701, respectively). By the multivariate analysis, tumor size, lymph node metastasis and survivin expression were independent prognostic factors both in disease-free and overall survival. These findings indicate that survivin expression is associated with unfavorable clinicopathological parameters and represents an independent marker for prognosis of LSCC.