Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor - Its Relation to Neovascular ization and Their Significance as Prognostic Factors in Renal Cell Carcinoma

Abstract

Angiogenesis is a series of processes that include endothelial proliferation, migration and tube formation. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is regarded as a potent mediator of angiogenesis, vascular permeability and tumor cell growth in renal cell carcinoma. This study was designed to evaluate the expression of VEGF and the microvessel count (MVC) and to determine their prediction efficacies for prognosis in renal cell carcinoma. The relationship between the expression of VEGF and MVC were evaluated immunohistochemically in 50 patients with renal cell carcinoma who received a radical nephrectomy at Wonju Christian Hospital between 1989 and 1997. Microvessels were identified by immunostaining endothelial cells for CD-31 antigen. The mean follow-up was 96 months (3 - 133 months). Overall 5-year survival rate was 71.5%. VEGF was expressed in the tumor cell cytoplasm. Of the 50 tumors, 23 (46%) were weak to strongly positive for VEGF but 27 (54%) were unreactive. The respective 5-year survival rates for patients with positive and negative expressions of VEGF were 70% and 73% (p > 0.05). The overall mean MVC was 13.4 in a 400x field. Mean MVCs were significantly higher in VEGF-positive tumors (17.6 +/- 12.1) than in VEGF-negative tumors (9.9 +/- 5.4), and the MVCs of the high vascular density group and the low vascular density groups were significantly different. The 5-year survival rates of patients with high vascular density and low vascular density were 59% and 86%. The median survival period for patients with MVCs higher than or equal to 10 vessels/field was 85 months, whereas for those with MVCs lower than 10 vessels/field the median survival time was 102 months. These results suggest that MVC may be a better prognostic factor in renal cell carcinoma than the expression of VEGF.

Relationship Between Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor and Nuclear Factor-κB in Renal Cell Tumors

“…Several studies investigated VEGF mRNA expression and/or expression of VEGF protein in renal cell carcinoma (14). Our results are in part consistent with previous findings, demonstrating VEGF protein in nearly 30% of CCRCCs (18,19). Besides, our study offered more information on VEGF staining pattern and differences between CCRCCs and non-CCRCCs.…”

Portal Vein Arterialization Increases Hepatocellular Apoptosis and Inhibits Liver Regeneration

“…Ki67 is marked with the corresponding antibody Ki67 (DAKO, Gostrup, Denmark) [24,25]. To examine the sinusoidal lining cells, anti-CD 31 monoclonal antibody specific for the endothelial cell marker CD 31 (mouse anti-rat CD 31; Serotec, Duesseldorf, Germany) was applied [26]. The immunohistological procedures on paraffin-embedded sections have been described in a previous publication [27].…”

The prognostic value of vascular endothelial growth factor in patients with renal cell carcinoma: a systematic review of the literature and meta-analysis

“…remaining 42 articles were reviewed, and of these 23 were excluded, the reasons for which are shown in Figure 1. Thus, 19 studies were included in the quantitative synthesis [10,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. Five of these studies [20,22,25,33,36] did not provide data (HR or Kaplan-Meier curve) to calculate the HR for OS, PFS, or DSS, and therefore could not be included in the meta-analysis.…”

“…Five studies [19,24,26,28,34] either provided HR data or data from which the HR could be calculated, and were included in the analysis of OS. Relatively high heterogeneity was observed among the five studies, therefore, a random-effects model of analysis was used (Q statistic = 15.993, I 2 = 74.99%, p = 0.003).…”