Suzuki R, Fukai N, Nagashijma G, Asai J I, Itokawa H, Nagai M, Suzuki T, Fujimoto T
Department of Neurosurgery, Showa University, Fujigaoka Hospital, Japan.
Acta Neurochir Suppl. 2003;86:277-9. doi: 10.1007/978-3-7091-0651-8_60.
Brain oedema associated with cerebral contusion can be life-threatening. Mechanisms of the development of brain oedema are still unclear.
We investigated the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its receptor VEGFR-2 (KDR/Flk-1) in the contusional brain tissue obtained during neurosurgery from 5 patients.
VEGF is expressed in some but not all the astrocytes, and KDR/Flk-1 is expressed in vascular endothelial cells in the con-tusional tissue as early as 3 hours after onset.
The results suggested that the VEGF is induced in the contusional tissue in the very early period after onset, and that it increases capillary permeability via KDR/Flk-1 resulting in vasogenic type brain oedema.
