BASIC FIBROBLAST GROWTH-FACTOR AND VASCULAR ENDOTHELIAL GROWTH-FACTORIN SERA FROM NONSMALL CELL LUNG-CANCER PATIENTS

Background: The formation of new microvessels from the existing vascul ar bed is known as angiogenesis and is normally under the tight regula tory central of angiogenic factors. This control is lost in malignant tumours. Previous studies have correlated increased microvessel densit y with poor prognosis in patients with primary lung cancer: Material a nd Methods: Our group measured levels of vascular endothelial growth f actor (VEGF) and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) in sera from 68 patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and compared elevate d levels of VEGF and bFGF with clinical outcome. Serum basic FGF and V EGF were measured using commercially available enzyme-linked immunosor bent assays (R & D Systems Inc., Minneapolis, MN USA). Results: In 26/ 68 (38%) patients we found that elevated circulating levels of bFGF an d in 27/68 (39%) serum samples levels of VEGF were elevated. Elevated bFGF values in sera was a statistically significant good prognostic fa ctor p- value = 0.048, when adjusted to stage and there was a trend in that patients with elevated levels of bFGF had a higher fraction of a denocarcinomas compared with squamous epithelial carcinomas (chi(2)=2. o). No significant correlations could be demonstrated when elevated le vels of VEGF in serum was present. Elevated levels of both VEGF and bF GF was present in 45 % of the patients. Conclusions: We found that ele vated levels of bFGF is a good prognostic factor when measured in sera from NSCLC patients. As this result disagrees with earlier studies on other malignancies the results from our study needs to be further inv estigated in a prospective study.