Significance of serum vascular endothelial growth factor C in patients with lung cancer

Objective To study the relation and clinical value between serum vascular endothelial growth factor C(VEGF-C)and metastasis in patients with lung cancer,and evaluate the clinical value of VEGF-C expression for estimation of the growth and prognosis of lung cancer.Methods Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA) was used to detect the serum VEGF-C in 50 tissues of lung cancer and 20 tissues of healthy subjects.Results Serum VEGF-C level in lung cancer was significantly higher than control group(P0.01).The serum level of VEGF-C had no significant relationship with pathologic type,sex,age and smoking(P0.05).There were significant differences in serum level of VEGF-C between patients with lymphatic or distant metastasis and the patients without matastasis(P0.01).Conclusion There is important clinic value for estimation of the growth of lung cancer by examining the level of serum VEGF-C.Serum VEGF-C could be considered as a useful biological indicator to evaluate invasion and metastasis of lung cancer.