Serum vascular endothelial growth factor-C level in patients with colorectal carcinoma and its clinical significance

Objective To measure circulating vascular endothelial growth factor-C(VEGF-C) levels in(patients) with colorectal carcinoma,and assess the clinical significance in diagnosis of lymph node metastasis.Methods Sixty-six patients with colorectal carcinoma and 30 healthy control patients were included in this study.Circulating VEGF-C and VEGF levels were assessed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.Results Serum VEGF-C and VEGF concentration was higher in patients with colorectal carcinoma than in healthy control patients(P0.01).Patients with lymph node metastasis revealed higher serum VEGF-C and VEGF concentrations than those without hymph node metastasis(P0.01).The level of VEGF-C and VEGF in lymphatic vessel invasion and venous invasion was higher in the group with invasion than in the group without invasion(P0.01).Serum VEGF-C levels reached a sensitivity of 81.0% and a specificity of 76.0% with a cutoff value of 1438.0 pg/mL,whereas VEGF levels reached 72.0% sensitivity and(74.0)% specificity at 240.2 pg/mL.With combined determination of VEGF-C and VEGF levels,the(positive) predictive value was 84.6%,the negative predictive value was 94.6%,and accuracy was(93.7)%.Conclusions Circulating VEGF-C levels may provide additional information for distinguishing(between) the absence or presence of lymph node metastasis in patients with colorectal carcinoma.VEGF-C can become a new target spot in the treatment of lymphatic metastasis in patients with colorectal cancer.