Prognostic value of “angiogenic” risk score in early-stage NSCLC.

Abstract

10594 Background: Angiogenesis is a key mechanism in tumor growth and dissemination mainly regulated by VEGF family members. We analyze the expression of 11 angiogenic genes in a cohort of resectable NSCLC patients and correlate them with clinico-pathological variables and prognosis. Methods: RNA was obtained from tumor and normal lung specimens from 175 NSCLC patients. RT-PCR was performed to assess the expression of HIF1-A, PIGF, VEGFA, VEGFB, VEGFC, VEGFD, VEGFR1, VEGFR2, VEGFR3, NRP1 and NRP2. Relative expression was normalized by an endogenous gene (GUS) using the Pfaffl formulae. Differences were considered statistically significant at p<0.05. Results: We found that tumor samples had a significant higher expression of PIGF and lower expression of VEGFD, VEGFR2, and VEGFR3 compared with normal tissue (2.76X, 0.035X, 0.417X and 0.426X, respectively). The group of patients with higher expression levels of VEGFA or PlGF had a significantly reduced TTP (p=0.024 and p=0.027, respectively) and OS (p=0.055 and p=0.048, respectively) whereas those patients with values of VEGFB or VEGFD below the median had reduced TTP (p=0.020 and p=0.135, respectively) and OS (p=0.003 and p=0.089, respectively). The multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that VEGFA, VEGFB and PlGF were independent prognostic markers for TTP and OS and based on these results we generated an “angiogenic” risk score model. TTP and OS were significantly different among the low, medium and high risk score patients (Table). Conclusions: VEGF family members are master control genes of the angiogenic process and have a crucial role in the prognostic of the disease. We found differences in the expression of four genes between tumor and normal lung samples. An “angiogenic” risk score (based on the expression of PlGF, VEGF-A and VEGF-B) significantly predicts OS and TTP in our cohort of early-stage NSCLC patients. Validation in an independent cohort is needed. Supported by grants PS09-01149 and RD06/0020/1024 from ISCIII. [Table: see text]