The Value Of Detection Of Survivin MRNA In Malignant Pleural Effusion

Objective To determine the diagnostic significance of the expression of survivin mRNA in pleural effusions in human lung cancer.Methods The pleural fluid specimens of 65 patients with lung cancer and 30 patients with tuberculosis pleural effusions were investigated.Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR) was performed to detect the survivin mRNA expression in the specimens.The results were compared with their examinations of carcinoembryonic antigen(CEA).Results The positive rate of survivin mRNA in 65 patients with malignant pleural effusion(53/65;81.5%) was higher than that of CEA(39/65;60%,p＜0.01). The positive rate of survivin mRNA in 65 patients with malignant pleural effusion (53/65;81.5%) was also higher than that in the pleural effusion of tuberclosis(0/30; 0.00%,p＜0.01).There was no statistical difference(p＞0.05) in the specificity diagnosis for malignant pleural effusion between survivin mRNA and CEA.We also found that there were no relationships between survivin mRNA expression and age, sex,location,histopathological subtype of the patients.Conclusion The detection of survivin mRNA expression from pleural effusion samples is a new ancillary diagnostic method for lung cancer.The survivin mRNA in pleural effusion samples might be used as one of the specific molecular markers for diagnosis of malignant pleural effusion.