Tissue specimens were available from 29 patients pre therapy and 15 patients post therapy. Samples pre- and post-90Y-RE were concomitantly available in 13 patients. The

study was approved by the Ethical Committee at the Regina Elena Cancer Institute (N°534; 22/03/05) and a written informed consent was obtained by all patients. Immunohistochemistry Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded liver biopsies were cut on SuperFrost Plus slides (Menzel-Gläser, Braunschweig, Germany). Antigen retrieval was performed at 96°C (10 mM/L citrate buffer, pH 6) for 40 minutes in a thermostatic bath. Sections were incubated with the polyclonal antibody (PAb) anti-survivin (1:100, Selleckchem Bafilomycin A1 Novus Biological, DBA, Milan, Italy); with the anti-Ki-67 monoclonal antibody (MoAb) MIB-1 (5 μg/ml; Dako, Milan, Italy), the anti-p53 MoAb DO7 (5 μg/ml, Dako), the anti-Bcl-2 MoAb 124 (1,5 μg/ml; Dako) for 30 minutes at room temperature. Positive and negative controls were included for each antibody and in each batch of staining. Immunoreactions were revealed by a streptavidin-biotin enhanced immunoperoxidase

technique (Super Sensitive MultiLink Selleckchem CDK inhibitor Menarini, Florence, Italy) in an automated autostainer. Diaminobenzidine was used as chromogenic substrate. Results were considered positive for survivin when at least 20% of tumor cells, independent https://www.selleckchem.com/products/psi-7977-gs-7977.html of nuclear or cytoplasmic localization, were immunostained, for p53 when 10% of tumor cell nuclei were labelled, Montelukast Sodium for Bcl-2 when > 5% of cells showed a cytoplasmic immunoreaction. Ki-67 proliferation index, based on the median value of our series, was regarded as high if greater than 50% of the cell nuclei were immunostained. Only well preserved tumor areas were considered for IHC evaluation. The IHC results were evaluated independently and in a blinded manner by two investigators (MD, MM). Statistical analysis The correlation between biomarkers expression and the response

to 90Y-RE was tested by the Pearson Chi-Square test and Mac Nemar test. Significance was assessed at 5% level (p < 0.05). The SPSS statistical software package version 19.0 was used for analyses (SPSS, Inc, Chicago, IL, USA). Results Expression pattern of survivin, p53, Bcl-2 and Ki-67 in liver metastases pre- and post-90Y-RE Of the 50 patients included in the SITILO clinical trial, 29 pre-90Y-RE and 15 post-90Y-RE had sufficient tissue material from their liver metastases for IHC evaluation of survivin, p53, Bcl-2 and Ki-67. As reported in Table 1, we found that, of the 29 liver metastases analyzed pre-90Y-RE, 24 (77.4%) were survivin positive, 27 (93.1%) p53 positive,11 (37.9%) Bcl-2 positive and 18 (62.5%) presented a high Ki-67 proliferation index (>50%). Of the 15 liver metastases available post-90Y-RE, survivin was expressed in 5 cases (33.3%), p53 in 11 (73.3%), Bcl-2 in 4 (26.7%) and Ki-67 was high in 6 lesions (40.0%) evidencing a variation in biomarker expression pre and post-90Y-RE.