Salgado Karina B, Toscani Nadima V, Silva Leonardo L M, Hilbig Arlete, Barbosa-Coutinho Ligia Maria
Postgraduate Pathology Program, Fundação Faculdade Federal de Ciências Médicas de Porto Alegre, Rua Pinheiro Machado 2804/11, Caxias do Sul, RS 95020-172, Brazil.
Clin Exp Metastasis. 2007;24(6):403-10. doi: 10.1007/s10585-007-9077-7. Epub 2007 Jun 13.
Brain metastases are linked to poor prognosis. After carcinomas of the lung and breast, malignant melanomas (MM) are the next type of neoplasm with the higher metastatic dissemination involving the central nervous system and that has the worst prognosis after metastasis has been diagnosed. Angiogenesis has been linked to tumor growth and metastasis. Among the immunomarkers of angiogenesis, endoglin (CD105) is the most specific antibody, since it is a marker for tumor endothelium, and expression of CD105 has been observed to be associated with prognosis in several types of tumor, which is not always observed in melanomas. This study investigated angiogenesis in brain metastasis secondary to malignant melanomas and compared these with brain metastasis secondary to carcinomas of the lung and breast, through expression of CD105 (endoglin). The study investigated 93 cases of brain metastasis secondary to MM (33) and carcinomas of the lung (31) and breast (29), assessing endoglin immunoexpression, number of microvessels and diameter of tumor vessels. Tumor microvessels were counted using a modified version of the Chalkley technique. The observed difference between MM and breast carcinoma was statistically significant (P = 0.026). The difference between MM and lung carcinoma was not significant (P = 0.218). Vascular diameter observation revealed no statistical difference between the vascular size of neoplastic vessels in MM and in breast and lung carcinomas. Of the tumors investigated here, malignant melanomas were shown to have the lowest number of microvessels and had intermediate tumor vessel diameter as compared to carcinomas of the lungs and breast. Such results were not expected to be found in neoplasms such as melanomas that, besides presenting high dissemination capacity, have a high index of hemorrhage secondary to brain metastasis.
脑转移与预后不良相关。继肺癌和乳腺癌之后，恶性黑色素瘤（MM）是下一种具有较高转移扩散至中枢神经系统发生率且在转移被诊断后预后最差的肿瘤类型。血管生成与肿瘤生长和转移有关。在血管生成的免疫标志物中，内皮糖蛋白（CD105）是最特异的抗体，因为它是肿瘤内皮的标志物，并且已观察到CD105的表达与几种肿瘤类型的预后相关，而黑色素瘤中并非总是如此。本研究通过CD105（内皮糖蛋白）的表达，调查了恶性黑色素瘤继发脑转移中的血管生成情况，并将其与肺癌和乳腺癌继发脑转移进行比较。该研究调查了93例MM（33例）、肺癌（31例）和乳腺癌（29例）继发脑转移的病例，评估内皮糖蛋白免疫表达、微血管数量和肿瘤血管直径。使用改良的Chalkley技术对肿瘤微血管进行计数。观察到的MM与乳腺癌之间的差异具有统计学意义（P = 0.026）。MM与肺癌之间的差异不显著（P = 0.218）。血管直径观察显示，MM与乳腺癌和肺癌的肿瘤血管大小之间无统计学差异。在此研究的肿瘤中，恶性黑色素瘤显示微血管数量最少，与肺癌和乳腺癌相比，肿瘤血管直径处于中等水平。在诸如黑色素瘤这类除了具有高转移能力外还因脑转移继发高出血指数的肿瘤中，预计不会发现这样的结果。
