survivin messenger RNA expression is a good prognostic biomarker for oesophageal carcinoma.

Oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma is one of the most malignant tumours. To identify patients with a high risk of recurrence of oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma, we investigated the prognostic significance of survivin mRNA expression in oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma, which has recently been reported to be a good marker for unfavourable prognosis in various tumours. Tumours and non-cancerous epitheliums adjacent to tumours were obtained by surgical resection from 57 patients with oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Expression levels of survivin and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase mRNA were analysed quantitatively by real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The survivin/glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase ratios of tumours were higher than those of non-cancerous tissues (P=0.0003). Tumour-survivin/glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase ratio did not correlate with histologic type, lymph node metastasis, and stage of tumours. In 53 surviving patients, the 5-year survival rate of 17 patients with high survivin mRNA expressed oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (14.1%) was significantly poorer than that of 36 with low survivin mRNA expressed oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (46.8%, P=0.0018). In these patients, tumour-survivin mRNA expression was recognised as a good marker of cancer recurrence independently from tumour stage. These findings indicate that survivin mRNA expression in oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma may be a good biomarker for identifying patients with high risk of cancer recurrence.