Clinical significance of serum VEGF in 78 patients with non-small cell lung cancer

Objective To measure serum levels of VEGF in non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC)patients and evaluate their prognostic value.Methods The serum levels of VEGF,in 78 cases with NSCLC were measured by ELISA before chemotherapy.Expression differences of VEGF and its relationship with the patients'survival were analyzed with x2 test,Kaplan-Meier survival curve.Results VEGF expression were found in 24 cases(30.8%).The serum levels of VEGF in patients before chemotherapy were significantly correlated to the lymph node metastasis,the distant metastasis,the TNM stage and the curative effect.No correlation was found among the expression of VEGF and the following clinical parameters such as age,sex,histological subtype.The differnnces of survival time between VEGF positive and negative expression NSCLC patients were approximate significant(P=0.074 1).Conclusion The measurement of serum levels of VEGF in advanced NSCLC is helpful for prediction of metastasis tendency and evaluation of prognosis.