DIFFERENCES IN TUMOR MICROVESSEL DENSITY BETWEEN SQUAMOUS-CELL CARCINOMAS AND BASAL-CELL CARCINOMAS MAY RELATE TO THEIR DIFFERENT BIOLOGIC BEHAVIOR

Tumor microvessel density (TMVD) has been recognized as an important i ndicator for the metastatic risk in certain tumors. The purpose of thi s study was to analyse whether there is an association of TMVD in epit helial neoplasms of the skin with their clinical behavior. Paraffin se ctions of keratoacanthomas (KA, n = 10), squamous cell carcinomas (SCC , n = 9), nodular (nod-BCC, n = 13), and sclerosing (scl-BCC, n = 12) basal cell carcinomas were immunohistochemically stained for factor-VI II-related antigen and TMVD was determined. In all SCC, KA and nod-BCC , TMVD significantly exceeded perilesional skin microvessel density (P SMVD) (SCC:TMVD/PSMVD = 20.54:11.25, p < 0.0001; KA:TMVD/PSMVD = 20.90 :12.17, p < 0.0001; nod-BCC:TMVD/PSMVD = 16.77:13.34, p = 0.03). In co ntrast, no significant difference between TMVD and PSMVD was found in scl-BCC (15.44:12.86, p = 0.22). TMVD was significantly higher in SCC and KA compared to nod-BCC (p = 0.036 and 0.006, respectively). Our da ta demonstrate that SCC and KA are highly vascularized tumors. The fac t that TMVD does not differ significantly between SCC and KA (p = 0.80 ) suggests that MVD is not an indicator for the metastatic risk or agg ressive growth behavior of epithelial skin tumors. The finding that MV D in both nod- and scl-BCC is significantly lower than in SCC and KA, might at least in part explain the slow growth of BCC. (C) Munksgaard 1997.