ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: A large body of evidence suggests that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is important to tumor growth and angiogenesis in cancers. This study was designed to determine the relationship between tumor vascularity and VEGF expression in invasive cervical cancer. Furthermore, we also compared the clinical factors with VEGF expression. METHODS: We examined the expression of VEGF and microvessel density (MVD) by immunohistochemical staining in 20 specimens collected from invasive cervical cancer patients. Thereafter, we compared the results with several clinical factors. We used the Chi-square test and One way Anova test for statistical analysis. RESULTS: All specimens showed weak and strong immunoreactivity. Microvessel counts were high in the strong (median 157.6) VEGF immunoreactivity and low in the weak (median 90) VEGF immunoreactivity (P=0.000). In addition, parametrium invasion showed statistically significant correlation with VEGF expression extent (p=0.021) but age, SCC, CEA, lymphovascular invasion, lymph node invasion and invasion depth of cervix showed no correlation. CONCLUSION: The overexpression of VEGF may play an important role in the promotion of angiogenesis in cervical cancer and may have relation to prognosis.