Expressions of the fibroblast growth factor family (FGF-1, -2 and -4) mRNA in endometrial cancers.

To investigate whether growth, invasion and metastasis of endometrial cancer cells is associated with neovascularization, the expressions of fibroblast growth factor-1 (acidic FGF), -2 (basic FGF) and -4 (hst-1) mRNAs and FGF-2 in endometrial cancers and normal endometria as controls were determined by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction-Southern blot and ELISA, respectively, and the relationships between their expressions and histological grades, grades of myometrial invasion or clinical stages of endometrial cancers were analyzed. The levels of FGF-1 mRNA and FGF-2 and its mRNA tended to increase with dedifferentiation (especially grade G3), myometrial invasion (especially grade C) and staging (especially stages III and IV) in endometrial cancers were significantly (p < 0.05) higher than those in normal endometria. However, the levels of FGF-4 mRNA expression were significantly (p < 0.05) lower than those of FGF-1 and -2 mRNAs in both endometrial cancers and normal endometria. Therefore, endometrial cancers might mainly secrete FGF-1 and -2, which leads to neovascularization to provide nutrition, resulting in accelerated growth, invasion and metastasis. Apparently, the increased secretion parallels the progressive malignancy of endometrial cancers.