The prognostic value of Survivin expression has been reported in several human cancers (Altieri et al, 1999); for example, the authors have recently reported that death from recurrent colorectal cancer is predicted by the detection of Survivin expression using either reverse transcriptase – polymerase chain reaction (Sarela et al, 2000) or immunohistochemistry (Sarela et al, 2001). This evidence concerns the gene BIRC5 and cancer.