Relationship between the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor and the prognosis of colon cancer patients

Purpose:To investigate the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its relationship with proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and the prognosis of colon cancer patients. Methods:The VEGF and PCNA as well as p53 expression were examined using immunohistochemistry with monoclonal antibody in 70 surgical samples of colon cancer. Results:VEGF expression was positive in 91.43% of the colon cancer patients. It had a positive relation with the p53 expression (rs=0.417, P 0.001) and the PCNA expression (rs=0.535, P 0.001). In patients with lymph node metastasis, VEGF had a high expression of 63.04%(29/46), while in patients without lymph node metastasis VEGF high expression was 29.17%(7/24),χ 2=7.254, P 0.01. In high VEGF expression patients, the 5 year survival rate was 30.56%(11/36), but it was 73.53% (25/34) in VEGF low expression patients, χ 2=9.639, P 0.005. Cox analysis showed that the VEGF expression could work as an independent marker of prognosis.Conclusions:VEGF plays an important role in the growth and metastasis of colon cancer and through which it can affect the patients' prognosis.