Vascular endothelial growth factor expression in preoperative biopsy specimens correlates with disease recurrence in patients with early gastric carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Recently many studies have demonstrated that the degree of tumor angiogenesis is related to the aggressiveness of the tumor and clinical outcome. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a well characterized inducer of angiogenesis. In this study, the authors investigated the prognostic significance of VEGF expression in patients with early gastric carcinoma together with p53 gene abnormality and tumor cell proliferation. METHODS: One hundred ninety-five endoscopically biopsied specimens obtained preoperatively from patients with early gastric carcinoma were studied immunohistochemically. RESULTS: According to conventional clinicopathologic factors, submucosal invasion, lymph node metastases, and tumor size were associated significantly with the incidence of disease recurrence. According to conventional biologic factors, VEGF expression was observed more frequently in patients with disease recurrence compared with those without disease recurrence whereas neither p53 abnormality nor tumor cell proliferation were correlated with prognosis. Moreover, multivariate analysis indicated that VEGF expression (as well as submucosal invasion and lymph node metastases) is an independent predictor of disease recurrence. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the current study show that VEGF expression may be a useful prognostic factor for patients with early gastric carcinoma.