Elevated expression of survivin-splice variants predicts a poor outcome for soft-tissue sarcomas patients

The aim of this study was to investigate the level and the prognostic value of the expression of different survivin transcript variants – survivin, survivin-ΔEx3 and survivin-2B – in tumours of 76 soft tissue sarcoma (STS) patients. The expression of survivin transcript variants in STS tissue samples and in 12 nonmalignant control tissues was analysed by quantitative RT–PCRs. Expression levels of all survivin transcript variants were strongly elevated in STS compared to normal tissues. A positive correlation between expression of splice variants and tumour stage was found ( P =0.02; χ 2 test). The multivariate Cox's proportional hazards regression model revealed a 7.3-fold increased risk of tumour-related death for patients with survivin-ΔEx3 overexpressing tumours ( P =0.007). The effect of surivivin (wildtype variant) and survivin-2B was less pronounced but still significant (2.2- and 1.9-fold, resp., P