When nuclear or cytoplasmic staining of survivin was scored separately, nuclear staining was linked with favourable prognosis in gastric cancer (Okada et al, 2001), breast cancer (Kennedy et al, 2003) and osteosarcoma (Trieb et al, 2003), whereas cytoplasmic survivin was not found to be prognostic. This evidence concerns the gene BIRC5 and breast cancer.