Neoangiogenesis in tumours contributes to the development of blood-borne metastases, and can be evaluated by markers of activated endothelial cells in preference to panendothelial markers. Our purpose was to document the prognostic significance of VEGF-R1, VEGF-R2, Tie-2/Tek and CD105 immunoexpression in breast carcinoma frozen samples (n ¼ 905, follow-up ¼ 11.7 years). We observed that: (i) CD105 (P ¼ 0.001) and Tie-2/Tek (P ¼ 0.025) (but not VEGF-R1 and VEGF-R2) overexpression correlated with a shorter survival, and were (Cox's model) independent histoprognostic indicators; (ii) only CD105 marked expression correlated (P ¼ 0.035) with a shorter survival of node-negative patients; (iii) three markers -CD105 (P ¼ 0.001), Tie-2/Tek (P ¼ 0.01), VEGF-R1 (P ¼ 0.001), but not VEGF-R2 -correlated with metastatic risk in node-negative patients in univariate analysis; and (iv) VEGF-R1 (P ¼ 0.01) expression correlated with high local recurrence risk. It is concluded that CD105 and to a lesser extent Tie-2/Tek and VEGF-R1, but not VEGF-R2 are endowed with prognostic significance that may be useful for patient monitoring, particularly CD105 expression for selecting node-negative patients for more aggressive postsurgery therapy.
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