Increased blood vascular endothelial growth factor levels in patients withacute myocardial infarction

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a growth factor for vascular e ndothelial cells in vitro. The present study was designed to determine whet her serum VEGF levels increase in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) compared with patients with stable exertional angina and control sub jects, and to examine the serial changes of serum VEGF levels in patients w ith AMI. We examined serum VEGF levels by using antibody prepared from seru m immunized with human VEGF(121). The serum VEGF level (pg/ml) was higher ( p < 0.0001) on admission in the patients with AMI (177 +/- 19) than in thos e with stable exertional angina (61 +/- 7) and control subjects (62 +/- 6). The serum VEGF level (pg/ml) of the patients with AMI was 177 +/- 19 on ad mission, 125 +/- 9 on day 3, 137 +/- 11 on day 5, 242 +/- 18 at 1 week, and 258 +/- 22 at 2 weeks after admission. The value was higher on admission t han on day 3 after admission (p = 0.014), the values were higher at 1 week and 2 weeks than on admission, on day 3, and 5 (p < 0.01). Furthermore, the re were correlations between peak VEGF levels at 1 week or 2 weeks after ad mission and peak creatine kinase levels. The increase of VEGF on admission in the patients with AMI may be due to the hypoxia of acute myocardial isch emia. The elevation at 1 week and 2 weeks from the onset may cause the deve lopment of collateral circulation in relation to the healing of the infarct ion site. Copyright (C) 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel.