Expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in hepatocellular carcinoma

Lee, Hyuk Joon; Koh, Young Taeg; Lee, Sun; Kim, Sang Beom; Kim, Seong Hoon; Suh, Kyung Suk; Lee, Kuhn Uk

Abstract

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is one of the most potent angiogentic factors in several tumors including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). This study was planned to evaluate the correlation between the expression patterns of VEGF and the clinicopathologic features of patients with HCC.
METHODS
Twenty-seven patients with curatively resected HCCs were included in this study. To determine the expression patterns of VEGF, western blotting and immunohistochemical staining were performed using polyclonal rabbit VEGF IgG (Santa Cruz, CA) as a primary antibody. These results were compared and analyzed to clinicopathologic features of patients.
RESULTS
In Western blotting, Only 5 cases exhibited higher VEGF expression (T/N > or = 0.8) in tumorous region, which was well correlated to the immunohistochemical staining. Between higher and lower VEGF expression group, there were no significant differences in the hypervascularities on angiography or microangiogenic invasions on histologic finding. Other clinicopathologic factors had no significances on VEGF expression. Two year disease-free suvival rate in higher VEGF expression group was 20.0%, which was significantly lower than 73.7% in lower VEGF expression group (p=0.02). But, in two year overall suvival rate, there were no differences between two groups (80.0% vs 82.8%; p=0.80).
CONCLUSION
In this study, higher VEGF expression seems to be correlated with higher recurrence rate of HCC. Wide-based prospective study is needed to confirm the potentiality of VEGF expression as a prognostic factor of HCC.