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We assessed the presence of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-C, VEGF-D and their receptor VEGFR-3 by immunohistochemistry in 59 epithelial ovarian carcinomas, 11 borderline tumours and 20 benign cystadenomas. VEGF-C and VEGF-D were generally expressed in tumour cells and also in endothelia adjacent to tumour nests which showed a strong staining for them. VEGFR-3 was expressed in lymphatic and vascular endothelial cells adjacent to tumour nests. Immunoreactivity was significantly more frequent as lesions progressed from a benign tumour to advanced carcinoma. A strong correlation was found between VEGF-C and VEGF-D detected in carcinoma and VEGFR-3 detected in neighbouring endothelial cells. Increased expression of VEGF-C, VEGF-D and VEGFR-3 was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis and peritoneal metastasis outside the pelvis. There was a significant correlation between the high levels of VEGF-C and VEGF-D proteins, and poor survival. The presence of VEGF-D was an independent prognostic indicator by multivariate analysis. We conclude that VEGF-C, VEGF-D and VEGFR-3 play an important role in lymphatic spread and intraperitoneal tumour development in ovarian carcinoma. Since VEGF-D was found to be an independent predictor of poor outcome, its measurement, together with other prognostic markers may improve prospective identification of patients with a poor prognosis.

We assessed the presence of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-C, VEGF-D and their receptor VEGFR-3 by immunohistochemistry in 59 epithelial ovarian carcinomas, 11 borderline tumours and 20 benign cystadenomas. VEGF-C and VEGF-D were generally expressed in tumour cells and also in endothelia adjacent to tumour nests which showed a strong staining for them. VEGFR-3 was expressed in lymphatic and vascular endothelial cells adjacent to tumour nests. Immunoreactivity was significantly more frequent as lesions progressed from a benign tumour to advanced carcinoma. A strong correlation was found between VEGF-C and VEGF-D detected in carcinoma and VEGFR-3 detected in neighbouring endothelial cells. Increased expression of VEGF-C, VEGF-D and VEGFR-3 was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis and peritoneal metastasis outside the pelvis. There was a significant correlation between the high levels of VEGF-C and VEGF-D proteins, and poor survival. The presence of VEGF-D was an independent prognostic indicator by multivariate analysis. We conclude that VEGF-C, VEGF-D and VEGFR-3 play an important role in lymphatic spread and intraperitoneal tumour development in ovarian carcinoma. Since VEGF-D was found to be an independent predictor of poor outcome, its measurement, together with other prognostic markers may improve prospective identification of patients with a poor prognosis.

We investigated the possible correlation between the microsatellite alterations (replication error: RER, and loss of heterozygosity: LOH) and clinicopathologic factors and survival in colorectal cancer. A total of 78 colorectal cancers was examined for microsatellite alteration at three microsatellite loci containing D2S123, D18S58 and C117-703. RER is considered positive when at least one microsatellite locus is detected. RER was positive in 28.2%, and the respective positivity was 12.8%, 15.3% and 11.5%. The positivity of LOH was 6.4%, 10.3% and 19.2%, in that order. RER-positive cancers were more significantly found in the proximal colon than the distal colorectum. Node-negative colorectal cancers were more noted in RER (+)-positive cancers. Multivariate analysis showed that LOH in D18S58 locus and RER in CI17-703 locus were independent prognostic factors.

To find out if there is any correlation between the DNA aneuploidy in gastric cancer that is invading the muscularis propria and survival.Retrospective study.Teaching hospital, Japan.52 patients who underwent gastric resection for gastric cancer that was invading the muscularis propria, and for whom clinical follow-up data were available.Flow cytometric measurement of DNA in paraffin-embedded tissue.Correlation between survival and clinicopathological variables including ploidy.22 (42%) of the cases were aneuploid and 30 (58%) were diploid. The lymph node status and DNA ploidy were the significant prognostic variables, but a multivariate analysis showed that only DNA ploidy was significant.Nuclear DNA ploidy is an independent prognostic factor in gastric cancer that is invading the muscularis propria.