ANTICANCER RESEARCH 24: 1973-1980 (2004)
Correlation of Serum VEGF Levels with Clinical Stage, Therapy Efficacy, Tumor Metastasis and Patient Survival in Ovarian Cancer LI LI1, LIMEI WANG2, WEI ZHANG1, BUJIAN TANG1, JIEQING ZHANG1, HONGLIN SONG1, DESHENG YAO1, YONG TANG1, XINQIU CHEN1, ZHIHUA YANG3, GANGDUO WANG4, XIPING LI4, JINSHUN ZHAO4, HONG DING4, EDDIE REED4 and QINGDI Q. LI4 1Department
of Gynecologic Oncology, Guangxi Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Nanning 530021; 2Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Beijing Military General Hospital, Beijing; 3Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Cancer Institute, Beijing, P. R. China; 4Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center and Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Cell Biology, West Virginia University School of Medicine and Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506, U.S.A.
Abstract. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) has been shown to play an important role in tumor growth and progression. However, the clinical implications of VEGF expression in ovarian tumors are not fully understood. We therefore investigated the serum level of VEGF in patients with ovarian tumors and explored the potential use of VEGF as a tumor marker for diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of human ovarian cancer. The serum VEGF (sVEGF) levels in 120 patients with ovarian carcinoma, 25 patients with benign ovarian tumor and 90 healthy female blood donors were measured by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in this study. We also determined the levels of sVEGF in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer before and after surgery. Our results showed that: (i) ovarian cancer patients had significantly higher levels of sVEGF compared to those of patients with benign ovarian tumor or those of healthy individuals. As a cut-off at 100 pg/ml, the sensitivity and specificity of sVEGF levels for diagnosing ovarian carcinoma were 77.1% and 87%, respectively. (ii) sVEGF levels were markedly elevated in patients with advanced stage or poorly-differentiated ovarian cancer, as well as in those with more ascites (>500 ml), as compared to
Correspondence to: Dr. Qingdi Q. Li, 1831 Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center, West Virginia University Health Sciences Center, P.O. Box 9300, Morgantown, WV 26506, U.S.A. e-mail:
[email protected] or to: Professor Li Li, M.D., Ph.D., Director, Guangxi Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Nanning 530021, P. R. China. e-mail:
[email protected] Key Words: VEGF, ovarian cancer.
0250-7005/2004 $2.00+.40
patients with early stage and well-differentiated ovarian cancer, or those with less ascites (100 pg/ml) was 28 months, while the average survival-time in patients with lower levels of sVEGF (
