Expression characteristics of structural proteins reveal that AVMs and CMs have different immunohistological properties. This study provides strong confirmation of previous findings of VEGF and bFGF immunoexpression in AVMs and CMs. It adds new information on TGFalpha expression in these malformations and on expression of the angiogenic factors in venous angiomas.

Retinoids strongly inhibit proliferation and migration in primary cultures of human glioblastomas multiforme. Our data support a clinical trial of retinoids for the treatment of human malignant gliomas. We observed that most established cell lines were not sensitive to RA. This difference between long-term cell lines and primary cultures cannot be explained by different retinoid receptor expression patterns.