title: Survivin expression in medulloblastoma: a possible marker for survival.
abstract: Medulloblastomas are highly invasive tumors which are generally disseminated at the time of diagnosis. High and continued morbidity and mortality have prompted the search for new biologic markers that might be used for targeted therapy to minimise treatment related side effects. In this work, we studied the positive expression of survivin in medulloblastoma and investigated its relation to clinical, pathologic data and survival. Tumor tissue specimens from 47 patients with medulloblastoma who underwent primary surgical treatment from June 2002 to June 2006 at the Mansoura university hospital, Egypt were collected. Paraffin sections of all samples were submitted for immunohistochemistry using anti-survivin antibody. The relation between the percentage of positive survivin cells with clinical, pathological and survival data was evaluated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In 47 cancer tissue specimens, one case large-cell-anaplastic (1.12 %), tweleve cases desmoplastic (25.53 %) and 34 cases classic medulloblastomas (72.34 %). The immunohistochemical expression of survivin was nulear with moderate intensity. It does not correlate with either age or sex. There was a significant negative correlation of survivin expression with survival (p < 0.001), where negative survivin immunostaining was associated with prolonged overall and disease free survival, while survivin expression was associated with shortened survival.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Survivin expression correlate with the clinical outcome with poor prognosis and could be a potential predictive factor for recurrence or metastasis.
authors.affiliation: Pathology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt.
authors.forename: Azza
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Abdel-Aziz
authors.forename: Mie Ali Ali
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Mohamed
authors.forename: Fatma Mohamed Farouk
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: Akl
authors.forename: Ahmed Nageeb M
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Taha
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D002528:Cerebellar Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D051034:Inhibitor of Apoptosis Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008297:Male; D008527:Medulloblastoma / Q000378:metabolism*; D009928:Organ Specificity; D000077022:Survivin
chemical_list: C107489:BIRC5 protein, human; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D051034:Inhibitor of Apoptosis Proteins; D000077022:Survivin