Clinical significances and relationship between vascular endothelial growth factor expression and microvessel density in gastric carcinoma

Objective To evaluate the correlation between vascular endothelial growth factor(VEGF) expression and microvessel density(MVD) in gastric carcinoma (GC) and the relationship of VEGF and MVD with clinicopathologic characteristics and prognosis of GC. Methods The expression of VEGF and intratumoral microvessel density (MVD) in one hundred and sixteen resected specimens of the patients with GC were observed and counted, and the relationship of VEGF and MVD with clinicopathologic factors and prognosis of GC were analysed. Results The expression of VEGF was found in 60.34% of the specimens. The MVD value was much higher in VEGF(+) group than that in VEGF(-) group (26.16±8.50 and 19.22±8.20, respectively, P0.01). Expression of VEGF was significantly higher in patients with lymph node metastasis than that in patients without lymph node metastasis (p0.05).Expression of VEGF was highly correlated with the stage of tumor (P0.05). MVD correlated with lymph node metastasis (P0.01) and abdomen metastasis (P0.01) and increased with the TNM stage (P0.01). The total five year survival rate in VEGF( ) group and low MVD group were significantly higher than that in VEGF(+) group and high MVD group respectively(both P0.01). Multivariate analysis indicated that the expression of VEGF and MVD were independent prognostic factors of GC. Conclusions The expression of VEGF and MVD can reflect the malignant degree of GC. They may serve as the prognostic factors and guide the decisions on the therapy.