Relationship between vascular endothelial growth factor and microvascular density with lymph node metastasis in breast carcinoma

Objective To investigate the relationship between vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and microvascular density (MVD) with lymph node metastasis in breast carcinoma (BC). Methods Expression of VEGF protein and VEGF mRNA and MVD in 47 cases of breast carcinoma were studied by immunohistochemistry methods and reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) technique. Results VEGF mRNA expression in BC tumor tissues were higher than in adjacent nomal tissues (55.30% vs 17.02%). VEGF mRNA expression in BC lymph node metastasis showed a tendency to relation. There was a close correlation between VEGF and MVD with lymph node metastasis ( P 0. 05). MVD positive rate in BC tumor tissues were higher than in adjacent nomal tissues ( P 0. 05) . Conclusion VEGF is closely related to angiogenesis of BC. The increase of VEGF and MVD may promote lymph node metastasis of BC.