Correlation between expression of HIF-1α,COX-2 and angiogenesis in epithelial ovarian cancer

Objective To investigate the expression of hypoxia-inducible factor-1α(HIF-1α),cyclooxygenase-2(COX-2) and the microvessel density(MVD) in epithelial ovarian tumors and to analyze their relationships and the significance in clinical research.Methods Expression of HIF-1α,COX-2 protein was detected by immunohistochemistry and the CD34 endothelial antigen was used by immunohistochemistry to label the new growth microvesse1.The microvessel density(MVD)of tumor was calculated.Results(1) The expression of HIF-1α,COX-2and MVD in epithelial ovarian cancer was higher than that in ovarian benign neoplasm.(2)In epithelial ovarian cancer,the expression of HIF-1α and COX-2 was related with FIGO stages(P0.05),but not with pathologic differentiation or histological type(P0.05).MVD was associated with the FIGO stages and tumour pathologic differentiation(P0.05),but no relation to the histological type(P0.05).(3) There were significant positive correlations between the expression of HIF-1α,COX-2 and MVD.Conclusion Overexpression of HIF-1αprotein is significantly associated with the angiogenesis in epithelial ovarian cancer.The mechanism may be that the elevated level of HIF-1α induces the tumor angiogenesis by activating the transcription of COX-2.