Expression and significance of hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha and vascular endothelial growth factor in gastric carcinomas

Objective To evaluate the expression and significance of hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha(HIF-1α) and vascular endothelial growth factor(VEGF) protein in primary gastric carcinomas. Methods The expression of HIF-1α and VEGF was detected in 172 cases of primary gastric carcinomas and 30 cases of benign gastric mucosa by immunohis-tochemical EnvisionTM. The relationship between HIF-1α, VEGF proteins expressions and clinic parameters were ana- lyzed by trend of chi-square test and the correlation between HIF-1α and VEGF proteins expressions was analyzed by spearman method. Results The positive rates of HIF-1αand VEGF were 55.81% and 63.37% in gastric carcinoma, which were significantly higher than that in benign gastric mucosa(χ2=11.16,13.76,P0.05). The HIF-1α and VEGF proteins expressions were positively related to clinical stage, histological grading, lymph node metastasis and tumor necrosis(χ2= 25.53,24.99,11.20,30.35; 25.43,13.13,11.31,23.29, P0.05)while were not obvious related to patients' age and five- year survival rate(χ2=3.92,4.63,4.79,4.65,P0.05). The HIF-1α were positively related to VEGF proteins expressions in gastric carcinoma(r=0.65, P0.05). Conclusion The HIF-1α and VEGF protein expression level increased obviously in gastric cancer tissues and was associated with the aggressive biological behaviors of gastric cancer.