Prognostic Significance of the Microvessel Density in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma / 대한이비인후과학회지

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) of nasopharyngeal neoplasms is a rare disease with a relatively poor prognosis, because they tend to be diagnosed in the far advanced stage. Therefore, radiotherapy had been the treatment of choice. Angiogenesis is a crucial step in the tumor growth and progression. The authors attempted to investigate the prognostic value of the microvessel density in NPC. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: We analyzed tumor tissues from 57 cases of paraffin block specimens which had been diagnosed with NPC and treated at Chonnam National University Hospital. The anti-human von Willebrand factor antibody was used to determine the microvessel density (MVD). RESULTS: The MVD was 48.5 in the early stage (stage I and II) and 51.2 in the advanced stage (stage III and IV), which were not statistically significant (p=0.057). The MVD was 55.3 in type I, 54.4 in type II, and 41.8 in type III, and there were no statistical significance between these values (p=0.36). The MVD was not statistically significant between T and N stages (p=0.26, 0.42). There was no significance between the MVD and the survival rates (p>0.05). CONCLUSION: The results suggest that the MVD was not a prognostic significance in NPC.