Expression of vascular endothelial growth factor C and chemokine receptor CCR7 in gastric carcinoma and their values in predicting lymph node metastasis.
OBJECTIVE
To study the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor C (VEGF-C) and chemokine receptor CCR7 in gastric carcinoma and to investigate their associations with lymph node metastasis of gastric carcinoma and their values in predicting lymph node metastasis.


METHODS
The expression of VEGF-C and CCR7 in gastric carcinoma tissues obtained from 118 patients who underwent curative gastrectomy was examined by immunohistochemistry. Among these patients, 39 patients underwent multi-slice spiral CT (MSCT) examination.


RESULTS
VEGF-C and CCR7 were positively expressed in 52.5 and 53.4% of patients. VEGF-C expression was more frequently found in tumors with lymph node metastasis than those without it (P<0.001). VEGF-C expression was also closely related to lymphatic invasion (P<0.001), vascular invasion (P<0.01), and TNM stage (P<0.001). However, there was no significant correlation between VEGF-C expression and age at surgery, gender, tumor size, tumor location, Lauren classification, and depth of invasion. CCR7 expression was significantly higher in patients with lymph node metastasis compared with those without lymph node metastasis (P<0.001) and was also associated with tumor size (P<0.01), depth of invasion (P<0.001), lymphatic invasion (P<0.001), and TNM stage (P<0.001). However, the presence of CCR7 had no correlation to age at surgery, gender, tumor location, Lauren classification, and vascular invasion. Among the 39 patients who underwent MSCT examination, only CCR7 expression was related to lymph node metastasis determined by MSCT (P<0.05). In the current retrospective study, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and accuracy of VEGF-C and CCR7 expression in the diagnosis of lymph node metastasis for patients with gastric carcinoma were 73.8%, 70.2%, 72.6%, 71.4% and 72.0%, and 82.0%, 77.2%, 79.4%, 80.0% and 79.7%, respectively. After subdivision according to the combination of VEGF-C and CCR7 expression, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that the accuracy of the combined examination of VEGF-C and CCR7 expression in predicting lymph node metastasis was relatively high (area under ROC curve [Az]=0.83).


CONCLUSIONS
The expression of VEGF-C and CCR7 is related to lymph node metastasis of gastric carcinoma and both of them may become new targets for the treatment of gastric carcinoma. Furthermore, the combined examination of VEGF-C and CCR7 expression in endoscopic biopsy specimens may be useful in predicting lymph node metastasis of gastric carcinoma and deciding the extent of surgical lymph node resection.
Yan
Chao
C
Department of General Surgery, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Second Medical University, Shanghai, China.
Zhu
Zheng-Gang
ZG
Yu
Ying-Yan
YY
Ji
Jun
J
Zhang
Yi
Y
Ji
Yu-Bao
YB
Yan
Min
M
Chen
Jun
J
Liu
Bing-Ya
BY
Yin
Hao-Ran
HR
Lin
Yan-Zhen
YZ
D002277:Carcinoma / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D011379:Prognosis; D054400:Receptors, CCR7; D019707:Receptors, Chemokine / Q000378:metabolism*; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism*; D042582:Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor C / Q000378:metabolism*
C515370:CCR7 protein, human; D054400:Receptors, CCR7; D019707:Receptors, Chemokine; D042582:Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor C