title: Survivin as a prognostic factor for osteosarcoma patients.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Survivin is one of the apoptosis inhibitor genes and is rarely expressed in adult -tissues. However, survivin expression has been detected in various human cancers and -correlations have been recognized between the level of expression of this gene in tumors and prognosis. In this study, we investigated the correlations between survivin mRNA expression in osteosarcoma tissues and clinicopathological parameters.
  
  
  METHODS
  There were 22 osteosarcoma patients in our hospital with paraffin-embedded -tissues which could be extracted from biopsy specimens. We used the RT-PCR method after extracting total RNA and conducted a densitometric analysis to determine the ratio of survivin relative to h-GAPDH as an internal marker.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Expression of survivin mRNA was detected in all osteosarcoma samples. Patients with metastasis had high survivin mRNA levels in initial biopsy specimens (p<0.01). Moreover, there was a statistically significant difference in survivin mRNA expression between -patients with and without metastasis (p<0.01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We concluded that high levels of survivin mRNA expression suggest poor prognosis for osteosarcoma patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Nihon University School of Medicine, 30-1 Oyaguchikamimachi, Itabashi-ku, Tokyo 173-8610, Japan. eosaka@med.nihon-u.ac.jp
authors.forename: Eiji
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Osaka
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.forename: Shunzo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Osaka
authors.forename: Yukihiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yoshida
authors.forename: Hideyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sugita
authors.forename: Satoru
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Asami
authors.forename: Keiichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tabata
authors.forename: Akihiro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hemmi
authors.forename: Masahiko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sugitani
authors.forename: Norimichi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Nemoto
authors.forename: Junnosuke
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ryu