Bossi P, Viale G, Lee A K, Alfano R, Coggi G, Bosari S
II Department of Pathology, University of Milan School of Medicine, Italy.
Cancer Res. 1995 Nov 1;55(21):5049-53.
Angiogenesis is a crucial step in tumor growth and progression. Its quantitation by microvessel counting is of prognostic value in several types of malignancies. Scarce data are available on angiogenesis in gastrointestinal tumors. We studied 36 adenomas and 178 large bowel carcinomas to evaluate the onset of angiogenesis in colorectal tumorigenesis and to assess the prognostic significance of microvessel quantitation. Endothelial cells were immunostained with an anti-CD31 mAb; in each case three microscopic fields (x 200) with the highest number of microvessels were counted: the average value of the three fields was used to evaluate the significance of microvessel density (MVD). MVD of normal mucosa (41 cases) served as controls. MVD was 42 +/- 10 in the normal mucosa, 64 +/- 10 in adenomas, and 115 +/- 39 in carcinomas (normal versus adenomas, P < 0.001; adenomas versus carcinomas, P < 0.0001). The transitional mucosa adjacent to carcinomas displayed intermediate levels of MVD (89 +/- 23; P < 0.001 versus adenomas; P < 0.001 versus carcinomas). High MVDs were not associated with metastases, disease stage, and patient survival. The data indicate that angiogenesis is an early, critical step in colorectal tumorigenesis. MVD, however, does not provide significant prognostic information in colorectal cancer patients.
血管生成是肿瘤生长和进展的关键步骤。通过微血管计数对其进行定量在几种恶性肿瘤中具有预后价值。关于胃肠道肿瘤血管生成的可用数据稀少。我们研究了36例腺瘤和178例大肠癌，以评估结直肠癌发生过程中血管生成的起始情况，并评估微血管定量的预后意义。用抗CD31单克隆抗体对内皮细胞进行免疫染色；在每种情况下，对微血管数量最多的三个显微镜视野（×200）进行计数：将这三个视野的平均值用于评估微血管密度（MVD）的意义。正常黏膜（41例）的MVD作为对照。正常黏膜的MVD为42±10，腺瘤为64±10，癌为115±39（正常与腺瘤相比，P<0.001；腺瘤与癌相比，P<0.0001）。癌旁的过渡黏膜显示出中等水平的MVD（89±23；与腺瘤相比，P<0.001；与癌相比，P<0.001）。高MVD与转移、疾病分期和患者生存率无关。数据表明，血管生成是结直肠癌发生的早期关键步骤。然而，MVD在结直肠癌患者中并不能提供显著的预后信息。
