The ligand VEGF-D, rather than the other ligands or tyrosine kinase receptors analyzed, is associated with progressive disease in gastric cancer patients undergoing surgery. The VEGF-D ligand might be a helpful marker indicating disseminated disease, and targeting VEGF-D may be a potential therapeutic strategy, although limitations imposed by the selected sample population have to be considered critically.

Abstract. We performed this study in order to evaluate the impact of the chemokine CXCL12 and its single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs1801157 on clinicopathological parameters and survival in patients undergoing surgery for esophagogastric cancer. The expression pattern of CXCL12 and its polymorphisms were analyzed by RT-PCR and PCR-RFLP in 69 consecutive fresh-frozen samples of human esophagogastric junction and gastric adenocarcinomas and statistically analyzed. Expression of the CXCL12 (SNP rs1801157) polymorphisms GA/AA significantly correlated with distant metastasis (P=0.026), but not with prognosis. However, CXCL12 expression was not significantly associated with the tumor infiltration depth, lymphatic metastasis and grading. As CXCL12 polymorphisms mediate tumor cell dissemination in esophagogastric cancer, they could represent a marker indicating advanced disease. Antagonists targeting the CXCL12/ CXCR4 axis may be a novel therapeutic option in this entity.

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