BACKGROUNDTissue microarray provides a convenient shortcut for immunohistochemical staining. The aim of this study is to investigate the clinicopathologic and prognostic values of survivin and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression level in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

METHODSExpression of survivin and COX-2 was detected in 88 cases of NSCLC and 5 cases of normal lung samples by immunohistochemical staining on tissue microarray sections. All cases were followed up for more than 5 years.

RESULTSCytoplasmic and nuclear expression rate of survivin in NSCLC was 94.3% and 79.5%, respectively, and positive expression rate of COX-2 was 71.6%, however, neither survivin nor COX-2 expression was observed in normal lung tissues (P < 0.005). Nuclear expression of survivin was markedly higher in smokers than that in non-smokers (P=0.002). The positive expression of COX-2 was significantly related to gender, smoking, histologic subtype and lymph node metastasis (P < 0.05). Univariate analysis showed that patients with positive expression of COX-2 had worse overall survival (P=0.014), however, survivin expression was not related to survival. Multivariate analysis showed that neither survivin nor COX-2 was independent prognostic factor for survival.

CONCLUSIONSThe results indicate that survivin highly expresses in NSCLC, so the ubiquitous expression makes it a potential novel parameter for diagnosis of NSCLC. Aberrant expression of COX-2 is related to worse overall survival, which may be useful to predict prognosis for NSCLC.