Vascular endothelial growth factors and angiopoietins in presentations and prognosis of papillary thyroid carcinoma
Abstract
Aims
Angiogenesis from thyroid cancer cell plays the important roles in post-surgical persistent, recurrent, and metastatic papillary thyroid cancer (PTC). This study is to investigate the expression of angiopoietin-1 (Ang-1), angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2), Tek/Tie-2 receptor, and vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGF) in normal, benign thyroid tissues and different stage of PTC. We expect angiogenetic factors are important in the presentation of local-regional neck or distant metastases in PTC.
Materials and Results
A total of 101 tissues from the subjects underwent thyroidectomy were enrolled in the study. There were 22 control and 79 thyroid cancer patients in different TNM stagings were collected. Ang-1 illustrated highest mean immunostaining score in metastatic group. Comparing with normal and benign thyroid tissues, thyroid cancer tissues illustrated significantly high expression of three angiogenetic factors and Tie-2 receptor. Of the PTC, significantly high expression of three angiogenetic factors and Tie-2 receptor were illustrated in recurrent cases. VEGF showed statistical difference in disease-free cancer mortality, and recurrent groups.
Conclusions
Immunochemical staining illustrated VEGF, Ang-1, Ang-2 expression in PTC tissues related to clinical staging; however, we need more information concerning these factors with long-term follow-up results. J. Surg. Oncol. 2011; 103:395–399. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
