Lack of prognostic significance of tumor angiogenesis in resected pN2 non-small cell lung cancer.
OBJECTIVE
Despite extensive studies of tumor angiogenesis in non-small cell lung cancer, only a few studies had concentrated on pN2 disease.


METHODS
Sixty patients with pN2 non-small cell lung cancer who had undergone a complete resection with a systematic mediastinal lymph node dissection were reviewed retrospectively. Immunohistochemical study, using antibodies against factor VIII, was conducted. We compared between 5-year survivors and the others rather than the cumulative survival rate.


RESULTS
There were 13 patients (21.7%) survived longer than 5 years after a surgical resection. The microvessel density in survivor and non-survivor group was 22.9+/-14.8 and 24.3+/-21.9, respectively. This data indicated that microvessel density might not be related to the ratio of 5-year survivors (P=0.723). Multivariate analysis also showed that microvessel density was not independent prognostic factor.


CONCLUSIONS
We failed to find a prognostic significance of tumor angiogenesis in pN2 disease. Although tumor angiogenesis might be important for the development and maintenance, it was not identified as a prognostic factor of pN2 non-small cell lung cancer.
Department of Surgery II, Miyazaki Medical College, Kihara 5200, Kiyotake, Miyazaki 889-1692, Japan. mtomita@post.miyazaki-med.ac.jp
Masaki
M
Tomita
Yasunori
Y
Matsuzaki
Masao
M
Edagawa
Tetsuya
T
Shimizu
Masaki
M
Hara
Toshio
T
Onitsuka