The prognostic significance of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF C-1) immunoexpression in oligodendroglioma. An analysis of 91 cases

Oligodendrogliomas continue to generate considerable difficulties in identi fying prognostic factors, including single histopathological patterns. Amon g the latter, vascular productive changes have been intensively examined bu t the obtained results appear to be controversial. Numerous studies have re vealed an indisputable importance of vascular endothelial growth factor (VE GF) immunoreactivity for malignant progression of astrocytomas but the data regarding oligodendrogliomas are heterogeneous. Ninety-one patients with o ligodendroglioma were examined retrospectively for VECF immunoexpression. T he results demonstrated significant preponderance of intracellular VEGF exp ression for WHO grade III tumors. Nevertheless, VEGF staining patterns corr elated with both progression-free and overall survival only in univariate, but not in multivarite analysis. Only WHO tumor grade was found to be an in dependent prognostic factor for oligodendroglioma outcome. Therefore, it se ems unlikely that VEGF immunohistochemistry will be of value in assessing i ndividual oligodendroglioma prognosis, especially for determining of both p rogression-free and overall survival from histologically low-grade tumors.