Srinuan Pusampao. Plasma levels of vascular endothelial growth factor in patients with head and neck cancers. Master's Degree(Medical Physics). Mahidol University. : Mahidol University, 2009-07-09.
Plasma levels of vascular endothelial growth factor in patients with head and neck cancers
Abstract:
Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a cytokine that plays an
important role in tumor angiogenesis. VEGF is over expressed in many human
cancers, including head and neck cancers. Plasma VEGF (p-VEGF) has been reported
to be significantly raised in patients with prostate cancer, leukemia and gastric cancer
and to be related to disease aggressiveness. But p-VEGF levels in patients with head
and neck cancers have not been reported.
In this study, we measured VEGF concentrations in plasma by a highly
sensitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and analyzed p-VEGF in 66
patients with head and neck cancers and the results were compared with 31 normal
subjects.
Fifty pg/ml of VEGF concentrations was used as a cut off level, 48.9% of
cancers including hypopharyngeal, laryngeal and nasopharyngeal cancers released p-
VEGF of >50 pg/ml in contrast to 22.0% of cancers in other locations (p<0.05).
Seventy percent of poorly differentiated tumors showed p-VEGF of >50 pg/ml while
15.0% of the well and moderately differentiated tumors released high level of p-
VEGF (p<0.01). There was no significant correlation between p-VEGF levels and
lymph node involvement, tumor stage and overall stage grouping. In conclusion,
plasma VEGF might serve as an noninvasive tool for characterization of head and
neck cancers.