The intratumoral expression of vascular endothelial growth factor and interleukin-8 associated with angiogenesis in nonsmall cell lung carcinoma patients

BACKGROUND. Angiogenesis has important effects on tumor growth and metastas is. It is regulated by a variety of angiogenic and angiostatic factors. METHODS. To evaluate the effects of tumor cell-derived angiogenic factors, we performed an immunohistochemic study to evaluate the intratumoral expres sion of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and interleukin-8 (IL-8) in relation to intratumoral microvessel density (IMD) in tumors from 104 no nsmall cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) patients. RESULTS. Fifty-four carcinomas were VEGF-positive, 47 carcinomas were IL-8- positive, and 53 carcinomas were hypervascular tumors. There was no signifi cant correlation between the percentages of positive VEGF-staining and posi tive IL-8-staining in NSCLCs (rho = 0.174, P = 0.080). The IMD of VEGF-posi tive carcinomas was significantly greater than that of VEGF-negative carcin omas (P = 0.023). In addition, the IMD of IL-8-positive carcinomas was sign ificantly greater than that of IL-8-negative carcinomas (P = 0.013). The ov erall survival rate of patients with hypervascular tumors was significantly lower than that of patients with hypovascular tumors (41.0% versus 67.0%, P = 0.004). Cox proportional-hazards regression model also demonstrated tha t angiogenesis was one of the significant factors in predicting the surviva l of NSCLC patients (relative risk = 1.944, P = 0.041). CONCLUSIONS. Intratumoral expression of VEGF and IL-8 was associated with a ngiogenesis in NSCLCs. Tumor angiogenesis significantly affected the progno sis of NSCLC patients. (C) 2001 American Cancer Society.