Expression of VEGF in breast lesions: an immunohistochemical study

Background: Breast cancer is the most frequent cancer in India. During the last few years, several investigators have focused on tumor angiogenesis as a critical step in cancer development and progression. Among these, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is emerging as a prognostic marker in patients with several type of cancer including breast cancer. The aim of the study was to analyse the expression of VEGF in human breast cancer as compared to normal breast tissue and benign breast lesions by immunohistochemistry. Also, to assess the usefulness of VEGF as a predictor of aggressiveness of breast lesions.Methods: Formalin fixed paraffin embedded sections of 10 cases of normal breast tissue, 20 cases of benign breast lesions and 20 cases of malignant breast lesions were taken up for the study and subjected to immunohistochemistry using VEGF.Results: The intensity of VEGF immunostaining in normal breast, benign and malignant breast lesions was evaluated and scoring was graded as 0, 1+, 2+, 3+ and 4+. Statistical analysis was performed with Chi-Square test and significant differences were noted between these 3 groups (p value <0.05).Conclusions:VEGF expression correlated well with the grade and stage of tumor indicating that VEGF positive tumors are biologically aggressive and are associated with poor prognosis but little is known about the implication of genetic alterations of VEGF in benign breast lesions.

Chemotherapeutic potential of Boerhaavia diffusa Linn: A review.

Boerhaavia diffusa Linn. has been shown to exhibit a wide range of medicinal properties for the treatment of diabetes, inflammation, stress, hepatotoxicity, jaundice and heart failure. The extraordinary antioxidant, hepatoprotective, antibiotic, antidiabetic and anticarcinogenic properties of B. diffusa have attracted pioneers in the field of science and medicine. Moreover, the therapeutic importance of this plant, which is due to presence of polyphenols and flavanoids, makes this plant medically more important to be exploited by clinicians and scientists to gain more insight into its biological and medicinal properties. The present review on B. diffusa focuses over the chemical compositions and its ethno-medicinal uses, linked from ancient times to the present with a scope of development in future. Furthermore, a recent update on mechanistic approaches of B. diffusa has also been discussed, which could be helpful for the researchers working in this field. Eventually, based on its antioxidant and antidiabetic characteristics, it is hypothesized that B. diffusa might exhibit antiglycating properties as well.