Abstract:Objective：To evaluate the relationship between the expression of survivin,caspase-3 and Cox-2 and clinicopathological characteristics in gallbladder carcinoma(GBC). Methods：Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of survivin,caspase-3 and Cox-2 in 49 specimens of GBCs,9 cases of gallbladder adenoma and 10 cases of chronic cholecystitis. Results：Positive cytoplasmic immunoreactivity was detected in a proportion of 65.3% for survivin, 44.9% for caspase-3, and 75.5% for Cox-2 in GBCs, respectively, and those were significantly higer in malignant lesions than in benign diseases. There was no significant relation between the expression of survivin or Caspase-3 and patients′ clinicopathological features, except the expression of caspase-3 was related to the tumor differentiation. There was a relationship between Cox-2 expression and the depth of invasion, lymph node metastases and Nevin′s staging of the tumor. Furthermore, the expression of survivin correlated positively with Cox-2 expression(r=0.404,P=0.004) and inversely with caspase-3(r=－0.373,P=0.008),but no significant correlation was found between the expression of caspase-3 and Cox-2 (r=-0.156,P=0.284).Conclusions：The over-expression of survivin and Cox-2 and descended expression of caspase-3 play an important role in the carcinogenesis and progression of GBC. Survivin and Cox-2 may be identified as targets for target therapy of gallbladder carcinoma.