Expression of VEGF-C and its relationship to invasion and metastasis of cervical carcinoma

Objective: To study the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor-C(VEGF-C) in the early stage of cervical carcinoma and its relationship with the lymphnode metastasis in cervical carcinomas.Methods: Immunohistochemistry S-P method was used to detect the expression of VEGF-C in 20 cases of normal cervical tissues and 63 cases of cervical cavcinoma.The microvessel density was detected with CD34 in VEGF-C positve and negative groups respectively.The correlation between VEGF-C and histological types,cell differentiation,clinical stages,lymph nodes metastasis and the microvessel density was analyzed stastistically.Results: VEGF-C was expressed in cervical carcinomas but not in normal cervical tissues.The positive rate of VEGF-C was 61.2% in cervical carcinomas.There was positive correlation between the expression of VECF-C and lymph node metastasis in cervical carcinomas.The lymph node metastasis rate was 48.8% in patients with VEGF-C positive and 15.0% in patients with VEGF-C negative(P=0.01).The expression level of VEGF-C was not related to the tumor size,histological types or cell differentiation(P>0.05).The expression of VEGF-C was not related to tumor microvessel dentisty in cervical carcinomas(P>0.05).Conclusions: Expression of VEGF-C in cervical carcinomas was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis in cervical carcinoma,but the expression has no relation with the tumor microvessel dentisty.The increase of VEGF-C suggests lymphnode metastasis.VEGF-C plays an important role in promoting pelvic lymph node metastasis in cervical carcinomas.