[Quantitative study of vascular endothelial growth factor expression in primary lung cancer].

OBJECTIVE: To study the expression levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its relation with intratumoral microvessel density (MD), cellular proliferation activity (PI), and lymph node metastasis of primary lung cancer. METHODS: Surgical samples of 53 patients with primary lung cancer were measured. The VEGF was immunofluorescence stained with VEGF polyclonal antibody. The propidium iodide was used to stain cellular DNA. VEGF expression levels and DNA content were analyzed quantitatively using flow cytometry. Intratumoral microvessel density was detected by factor VIII polyclonal antibody using immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: VEGF expression levels (FI) were high in lung cancer (1.3 +/- 0.6, positive ratio 73.58%). The cellular proliferation activity (PI) in VEGF-positive tumors was significantly higher than that in VEGF-negative tumors (29.8% +/- 9.2% vs 18.7% +/- 6.5%, P < 0.01). The intratumoral microvessel density (MD) in VEGF-positive tumors was higher than that in VEGF-negative tumors (19.4 +/- 11.3 vs 12.3 +/- 8.0, P < 0.05). No association was found between the MD and PI (r = 0.169, P > 0.05). The VEGF expression levels in lung cancer tissues with lymph node metastasis (n = 33) were significantly higher than that in those without lymph node metastasis (n = 20) (1.5 +/- 0.6 vs 1.0 +/- 0.5, P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: VEGF plays an important role in the growth and metastasis of lung cancer.