Investigation of relation between expression of podoplanin and lymphatic metastasis in human hepatocellular carcinoma

【Objective】To observe the expression of podoplanin in lymphatic endothelial cells in the human hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) so as to provide morphological data for the study on the molecular mechanism of tumor metastasis,.【Methods】The expression of podoplanin in hepatocellular carcinoma,lymph nodes and normal liver tissue was observed by SP immunohistochemistry.Using podoplanin as the specific marker of lymphatic endothelium,lymphatic micro-vessel density(LMVD) in hepatocellular carcinoma was calculated.【Results】 Podoplanin was not stained in blood vessels,but podoplanin was positively expressed in the human HCC lymphatics.LMVD of HCC tissue and pericancerous liver tissue was obviously higher than that in normal hepatic tissues(P0.05).【Conclusions】Podoplanin is selectively expressed in lymphatics of HCC and could correctly distinguish blood vessels from lymphatic vessels.It could be regarded as the specific marker of lymphatic vessels.The positive rate of podoplanin expression increases in HCC and metastatic lymph nodes,therefore,the increased count of lymphatic vessels likely contributes to lymphatic spread of HCC.