Abstract
Background. High circulating vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) levels tend to reflect tumor aggressiveness for being associated with tumor progression and prognosis. Measurement of soluble VEGF receptor-1 (sVEGFR-1) may improve diagnostic power of VEGF assay. Methods. This study investigated regulation of plasma VEGF by sVEGFR-1 in 82 patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma compared with 32 healthy subjects to obtain information for assay characterization. Results. Normality or abnormality of VEGF/sVEGFR-1secretion patterns was rated into five diagnostic levels from definitely abnormal (likelihood ratios) (LRs = 4–∞) to definitely normal (LRs = 0–0.17). Because of ineffective VEGF regulation, high grade tumor had a greater chance (62.5%) than low grade tumor (20%) in expressing a definitely abnormal pattern and a lower chance to express the normal pattern (P = 0.007). VEGF alone had much lower diagnostic power in differentiating between normal (LRs = 0.3–0.9) and abnormal secretion patterns (LRs = 2.2–2.4). Conclusions. VEGF dysregulation is suggestive of tumor aggressiveness for causing persistent plasma VEGF elevation. sVEGFR-1 improves diagnostic power of VEGF assay particularly in identifying subset of low grade tumor with underlying aggressive disease and ruling out aggressiveness in subset of high grade tumor.
Highlights
Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) represents an aggressive epithelial malignancy
Our study on vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) regulation by sVEGFR-1 in correlation with stepwise increases in combined tumor grade and stage starting from low grade at an early stage to high grade at the advanced stage revealed that the upregulated sVEGFR-1 in high-grade tumor which mostly presented at advanced stage failed to normalize the VEGF levels leading to persistent VEGF elevation
The results from this study suggest that plasma VEGF and sVEGFR-1 could serve as useful biomarkers to help strengthening the prognostic power of the pretreatment circulating VEGF assay used by many investigators [13, 15, 17,18,19,20]
Summary
Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) represents an aggressive epithelial malignancy. 60−80%, are present with locally advanced disease at diagnosis [1]. Metastasis to neck nodes is the most important prognostic factor, and advanced clinical stage is frequently linked to poor survival [3]. Measurement of soluble VEGF receptor-1 (sVEGFR-1) may improve diagnostic power of VEGF assay. This study investigated regulation of plasma VEGF by sVEGFR-1 in 82 patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma compared with 32 healthy subjects to obtain information for assay characterization. VEGF alone had much lower diagnostic power in differentiating between normal (LRs = 0.3–0.9) and abnormal secretion patterns (LRs = 2.2–2.4). SVEGFR-1 improves diagnostic power of VEGF assay in identifying subset of low grade tumor with underlying aggressive disease and ruling out aggressiveness in subset of high grade tumor VEGF dysregulation is suggestive of tumor aggressiveness for causing persistent plasma VEGF elevation. sVEGFR-1 improves diagnostic power of VEGF assay in identifying subset of low grade tumor with underlying aggressive disease and ruling out aggressiveness in subset of high grade tumor
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
