Overexpression of Pim-1 Is Associated With Poor Prognosis in Patients With Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Background and Objectives: It is well known that provirus integration site for Moloney marine leukemia virus I (Pim-1) plays an essential role in the occurrence and development of tumors. Here, we investigated expression of Pim-1 in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) and assessed the correlation between Pim-1 level and prognosis of the patients with ESCC Methods: Expression of Pim-1 was investigated by RT-PCR, immunohistochemistry, and in situ hybridization methods. Kaplan-Meier statistics was used to examine the relationship between levels of Pim-1 and prognosis using log-rank test. Results: The results demonstrated that ESCC tissues appeared strong expression levels of Pim-1 mRNA and protein while the normal esophageal tissues were either negative or showed only weak Pim-1 in RNA and protein levels. In addition, we found that Pim-1 expression was significantly correlated with histology grade. clinical staging, and lymph node metastasis (all P < 0 05), but not related to age and sex (all P > 0 05) Furthermore. the results of survival rates analyzed by Kaplan-Meier curve revealed that patients with high Pim-1 mRNA and protein expressions had a poorer prognosis than those with the low Pim-1 expression (P = 0.010 and 0.001. respectively). Conclusion: These findings demonstrate that Pim-1 may be used as molecular marker for predicting the prognosis of patients with ESCC. J Surg. Oncol. 2010;102:683-688 (C) 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.