Clinical Significance of Serum VEGF-C Level and C-erbB-2 Protein Expression in Patients with Breast Cancer

Objective To investigate clinical significance of serum VEGF-C level and C-erbB-2 protein expression in patients with breast cancer.Methods Sixty-two female patients with breast invasive ductal cancer and breast benign lesion were respectively selected.Serum VEGF-C level was detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA) before operation and at one month after operation,and C-erbB-2 protein expression in tissues of breast cancer was detected by immunohistochemistry.Then,the relationship between serum VEGF-C level and clinicopathologic characteristics and C-erbB-2 protein expressions wereas analyzed.Results The serum VEGF-C level before operation in breast cancer patients((279.65±17.34) pg/ml) was significantly higher than that in breast benign lesions patients((167.26±12.15) pg/ml),P0.01.In breast cancer patients,the serum VEGF-C level before operation was higher than that at one month after operation((209.45±15.23) pg/ml),P0.01.The serum VEGF level was related to tumor stage(P0.05) but not to patient age,tumor size,menopause status,lymph node metastasis or not and ER and PR expression(P0.05).The positive expression rate of C-erbB-2 protein in breast cancer patients(54.84%,34/62) was significantly higher than that in breast benign lesion patients(11.29%,7/62),P0.01.Moreover,the positive expression rate of C-erbB-2 protein in breast cancer patients with axillalymph node metastasis(69.44%) was significantly higher than that without axilla lymph node metastases(34.62%),P0.05.The serum VEGF level increased with increasing expression intensity of C-erbB-2 protein and there was positive correlation between them(r=0.813,P0.05).Conclusions The serum VEGF-C level in breast cancer may be conducted as an assisted marker to differential diagnosis of breast tumor.C-erbB-2 is related to lymph node metastasis of breast cancer patients.There is synergistic effect between VEGF-C and C-erbB-2 in the lymph node metastasis way of breast cancer.