Levels of vascular endothelial growth factor and nitric oxide in serum of gastric cancer patients and its clinical significance

Objective To determine the serum vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and nitric oxide (NO) levels in patients with gastric cancer and elucidate their significance of pre-operative VEGF and NO levels.Methods Serum VEGF level was measured by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and serum NO level detected by spectrophotometry in 72 gastric cancer patients,55 chronic gastritis patients and 30 healthy individuals.Results The serum levels of VEGF and NO in chronic gastritis patients were not significant from those in healthy subjects (P0.05).The pre-operative serum VEGF and NO levels in gastric cancers patients were significantly higher than those in patients with chronic gastritis and those of normal persons respectively (P0.01).Serum VEGF and NO levels correlated positively with tumor invasion depth,lymph node metastasis and TNM stage (P0.01 or 0.05). There was also a positive correlation between serum VEGF level and serum NO level (r=0.824,P0.01). Conclusions VEGF and NO are related to the onset and progression of gastric cancer. The pre-operative serum levels of VEGF and NO in gastric cancer patients may be a sensitive predictor of invasion,metastasis and TNM stage.