ABSTRACT
Objective:To investigate the predictive value of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression and microvascular density (MVD) for the depth of infiltration in early gastric cancer.Methods:The pathological tissues of 24 patients with early gastric cancer (early gastric cancer group), 23 patients with advanced gastric cancer (advanced gastric cancer group) and 10 patients with gastritis (gastritis group) who admitted to Fenyang Hospital Affiliated of Shanxi Medical University from January 2020 to January 2022 were retrospectively collected. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect VEGF expression and MVD in the lesion tissues of each group, and the correlation of VEGF expression and MVD in gastric cancer tissues with the clinicopathological characteristics of patients was analyzed. Postoperative pathological diagnosis was treated as the gold standard. The efficacy of VEGF and MVD in predicting the depth of infiltration in gastric cancer and early gastric cancer was assessed by using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve.Results:The VEGF positive expression rate was 10.00% (1/10), 29.17% (7/24) and 78.26% (18/23) in gastritis group, early gastric cancer group and advanced gastric cancer group, respectively, and the MVD was (21±5) strips/field, (23±9) strips/field and (43±15) strips/field, respectively. The positive expression rate of VEGF and MVD were related with the tumor diameter [>2 cm vs. ≤2 cm:69.70% (23/33) vs. 14.29% (2/14), (39±15) strips/field vs. (20±8) strips/field] and infiltration depth of gastric cancer [intramucosal carcinoma vs. submucosal carcinoma vs. advanced gastric cancer: 26.31% (5/19) vs. 40.00% (2/5) vs. 78.26% (18/23), (20±7) strips/field vs. (36±3) strips/field vs. (43±15) strips/field] (all P > 0.01), while not related with gender, age, tumor location, differentiation degree (all P > 0.05). The ROC curve analysis showed that the area under the curve (AUC) of VEGF and MVD in predicting the depth of infiltration in gastric cancer was 0.716 (95% CI 0.581-0.828) and 0.711 (95% CI 0.573-0.823), respectively; the optimal cut-off value of VEGF and MVD was positive and 24.8 strips/field, with the sensitivity of 53.19%, 61.70%, and the specificity of 90.00% both. The AUC of VEGF and MVD in predicting the depth of infiltration in early gastric cancer was 0.596 (95% CI 0.414-0.760) and 0.506 (95% CI 0.330-0.681) , respectively; the optimal cut-off value of VEGF and MVD was positive and 32.5 strips/field, with the sensitivity of 29.17% , 70.83%, and the specificity of 90.00%, 0, respectively. Conclusions:VEGF expression and MVD are elevated with the increase of depth of gastric cancer infiltration, while the value of the combination of both in predicting the depth of infiltration in early gastric cancer is not high.