Appraisal of tumor-associated neoangiogenesis in pulmonary metastases with anti-34/anti-105 immunohistochemical staining

Objective To appraise tumor-associated neoangiogenesis of pulmonary metastatic nodules with CD34、 CD105(Endoglin) immunohistochemical staining.Methods Surgical specimens from 18 patients with pulmonary metastatic nodules were immunostained with anti-CD34 mAb and anti-CD105 mAb respectively.Microvessel density(MVD) of positively stained microvessels in CD34 and endoglin staining was calculated in densely vascular foci(Hots-pots),respectively.In the meantime,MVD of endoglin staining in the two different pathologically-originated metastases was compared.Results MVD of CD34 immunostaining and endoglin staining was 5.27±1.47 and 1.19±0.53,respec-tively.There was no significance in MVD of pulmonary metastases for endoglin staining between the two different no-dules originated from HCC and colorectal adenocarcinoma(1.25±0.68 1.16±0.42,=0.36,0.05).Tumor vessels might be divided into several components such as normal blood vessels,matured tumor vessels,mosaic vessels,activ-ated proliferating vessels,and so on.CD34 was apt to stain all kinds of microvessels.Nevertheless,endoglin significantly demonstrated more proliferating neoplastic microvessels including activated tumor vessels and mosaic vessels.Con-clusions Different pathologically-originated pulmonary metastases equally presents large amount of tumor vessels due to tumor-associated angiogenesis.Endoglin immunostaining can demonstrate more activated proliferating tumor vessels.Endoglin may be one of specific markers aiming at activated neoplastic vessels in pulmonary metastatic no-dules and can reveal angiogenesis in secondary metastatic site.