Serum vascular endothelial growth factor and its receptor level in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a disorder which encompasses not only morphological changes in parenchyma, central and peripheral airways but also in structural and functional changes of pulmonary vessels. The role of angiogenic factors leading to abnormal pulmonary vessel remodeling remains unclear. We have investigated a cytokine vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) known to be involved in angiogenesis, and its soluble receptors (sVEGF R1, sVEGF R2) in the serum of 20 patients with mild COPD and 10 patients with very severe COPD, using sensitive enzyme-linked immunoassays. The control group consisted of 10 healthy volunteers. We found that the concentration of VEGF in the serum of patients with mild COPD was significantly higher (665.31 +/- 102.20 pg/mL) in comparison to the control group (318.94 +/- 51.40 pg/mL; p < 0.05), and there was a strong negative correlation with FEV1 (r = -0.859; p < 0.001). Additionally, the level of sVEGF R1 in the serum of patients with very severe COPD was also significantly higher (96.60 +/- 26.85 pg/mL) than in the control (36.01 +/- 3.29 pg/mL; p < 0.05) and a positive correlation between the serum level of sVEGF R1 and FEV1 was found (r = 0.748; p < 0.01). Moreover, we observed an insignificant increase of sVEGF R2 in the serum of patients with mild COPD and those with very severe COPD. These results suggest that VEGF and sVEGF R1 receptor are involved in the development of abnormal pulmonary vascular remodelling in patients with COPD.