Clinical significance of vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGF)-C and -D in resected non-small cell lung cancer.
OBJECTIVE
Lymphatic spread of tumor is an important prognostic factor for patients with non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC). Vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C) and VEGF-D play important roles in lymphangiogenesis via the VEGF receptor 3 (VEGFR-3). We sought to determine whether VEGF-C, VEGF-D and VEGFR-3 are involved in the clinical outcomes of patients with resected NSCLC.


METHODS
Using immunohistochemical staining, we investigated the protein expressions of VEGF-C, VEGF-D and VEGFR-3 in the tissue array specimens from patients who underwent resection for NSCLC. The immunoreactivity for p53 was also examined. The clinicopathological implications of these molecules were statistically analyzed.


RESULTS
Analysis of a total of 118 specimens showed that VEGF-C, VEGF-D and their co-expression were significantly associated with more advanced regional lymph node metastasis (p=0.019, p=0.044 and p=0.026, respectively, N2 versus N0 and N1). A VEGFR-3 expression had a strong correlation with peritumoral lymphatic invasion (p=0.047). On the multivariate analysis for survival and recurrence, pathologic N2 lymph node metastasis was the only independent prognostic factor, but none of the investigated molecules showed any statistical correlation with recurrence and survival.


CONCLUSIONS
The present study revealed that high expressions of VEGF-C and VEGF-D were strongly associated with more advanced regional lymph node metastasis in patients with resected NSCLC.
Ko
Yoon Ho
YH
Division of Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine, Kangnam St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea.
Jung
Chan-Kwon
CK
Lee
Myung-Ah
MA
Byun
Jae Ho
JH
Kang
Jin Hyoung
JH
Lee
Kyo Young
KY
Jo
Keon Hyun
KH
Wang
Young Pil
YP
Hong
Young Seon
YS
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