The evaluation to relationship between serum vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) level, metastases and other tumor markers in patients with lung cancer

Abstract

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a potent mediator of angiogenesis. Increased expression of VEGF may be associated with advanced stage and poor prognosis in patients with lung cancer. We investigated the relationship between serum VEGF level and lung cancer stage. We also studied the correlation between serum VEGF level and some other tumor markers. Forty newly diagnosed lung cancer (31 non-small cell, 9 small cell) patients and 25 age-matched controls were enrolled in this study. Serum VEGF levels of lung cancer group (345.16 +/- 159.36 pg/mL) were significantly higher than that of the control group (230.36 +/- 47.87 pg/mL) (p<0.001). The area under the ROC curve was 0.727 (p<0.05) for serum VEGF threshold of 249.8 pg/mL predictive sensitivity and specificity, for lung cancer were respectively 70.0% and 76.0%. There were no significant relationship between serum VEGF level and age, gender, histologic type, lung cancer stage, distant metastases and site of metastases. In addition, there were no correlation between serum VEGF level and other tumor markers (NSE, CYFRA 21-1, CEA, CA125, LDH)