Vascular endothelial growth factor vascular permeability factor mRNA expression in patients with chronic hepatitis C and hepatocellular carcinoma

Angiogenic factors such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) may be involved in neovascularization of malignant tumors. Our aim was to determi ne whether there is an increased VEGF mRNA expression in liver from patient s with HCC and premalignant hepatitis C virus (HCV) with differing severity of inflammation. VEGF mRNA (VEGF165, VEGF189) was detected by reverse tran scription and semi-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) amplific ation in all liver samples. There was no difference in VEGF mRNA expression ratios (corrected for glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase) among thre e groups: steatohepatitis, as a non-malignant non-viral control, 1.05+/-0.3 5, n=8; chronic hepatitis C, 0.86+/-0.27, n=18; hepatocellular carcinoma, 1 .06+/-0.43, n=10. VEGF mRNA expression was independent of the severity of H CV inflammation estimated by the histological activity index: low HAI (less than or equal to 4, n=8) vs. high HAI (greater than or equal to 10, n=10), 0.93+/-0.31 vs. 0.81+/-0.24, p=ns. There was no significant difference in mean VEGF expression between HCC tumor (1.06+/-0.43) and adjacent tissue (0 .85+/-0.42) although the tumors tended to have higher expression than adjac ent non-malignant tissues. In conclusion, all liver samples of steatohepati tis, chronic HCV infection and HCC expressed VEGF mRNA, VEGF mRNA may be un iformly expressed in liver tissue, the level of expression is probably not related to virus infection or the severity of inflammation. Other angiogeni c or angiostatic factors might be more involved in angiogenesis in HCC.