Detection of survivin-expressing circulating cancer cells in the peripheral blood of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and its clinical significance

We previously demonstrated that the detection of circulating cancer cells (CCC) expressing survivin mRNA could provide valuable information for predicting recurrence in patients with breast, lung, gastric and colorectal carcinoma. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the detection of survivin-expressing CCC in the peripheral blood is also useful for predicting recurrence in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Blood samples obtained from 108 ESCC patients and 75 healthy volunteers were quantitatively investigated by a technique that detected reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction products based on a hybridization-enzyme linked immunosorbent essay. Not all of the patients were available for the follow-up study. Only 48 patients who were treated with similar adjuvant therapy regimens were available and followed-up for 33 months after the initial assay test. Survivin-expressing CCC were detected in 51 (47.2%) patients. The presence of survivin-expressing CCC was found to be significantly associated with depth of invasion, vascular invasion, nodal status, and disease stages (P = 0.032, 0.019, 0.018, and 0.001, respectively). During the follow-up period, patients who had positive survivin expressions had a higher relapse rate and a shorter survival time than those who had negative survivin expressions (P = 0.002 and 0.016, respectively). Examination of survivin-expressing CCC could provide valuable information in the prediction of haematogenous recurrence as well as in the prognosis of ESCC.