Clinical Cancer Research, Vol 4, Issue 7 1583-1590, Copyright © 1998 by American Association for Cancer Research

ARTICLES

Expression of platelet-derived endothelial cell growth factor in oral and oropharyngeal carcinoma

S Fujieda, H Sunaga, H Tsuzuki, N Tanaka and H Saito
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Fukui Medical University, Yoshida, Japan. sfujieda@fmsrsa.fukui-med.ac.jp

Platelet-derived endothelial cell growth factor (PD-ECGF) was isolated as an endothelial cell mitogen from platelets. In this study, we investigated the expression of PD-ECGF and counted microvessels in 58 oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) specimens by an immunohistochemical technique to examine their prognostic significance and performed tumor in vitro sensitivity to 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and cisplatin as determined by a bioluminescence assay of the ATP values of tumor cells after continuous exposure. The percentage of PD-ECGF-positive tumor cells (PD-ECGF score) was correlated with the frequency of the recurrence of disease (P=0.0043) but not with sex, tumor size, metastasis, or clinical stage. Overall survival of the high PD-ECGF expression group (>40% PD-ECGF score) was shorter than the low expression (<40%) group (P=0.0365). Vessel count was correlated with lymph node metastasis and clinical stage. The survival of patients with hypervascularity (more than the median of intratumor vessel counts, >82) was shorter than that of those with hypovascularity (vessel count <81, P=0.0446). However, there was no association between PD-ECGF expression and vessel count. Cox proportional multivariate analysis showed that PD-ECGF expression was the most significant independent prognostic indicator for overall survival. The susceptibility to 5-FU cytotoxicity in the extremely high PD-ECGF expression groups (>70% of PD-ECGF score) was significantly higher than that in the low group, whereas there was no difference in their sensitivity to cisplatin. These results showed that carcinoma cells with high PD-ECGF expression were sensitive to 5-FU in spite of poor prognosis. These data provide further information when deciding on adjuvant therapy for oral and oropharyngeal SCCs.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				H. Tsuzuki, H. Sunaga, T. Ito, N. Narita, C. Sugimoto, and S. Fujieda Reliability of Platelet-Derived Endothelial Cell Growth Factor as a Prognostic Factor for Oral and Oropharyngeal Carcinomas Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg, December 1, 2005; 131(12): 1071 - 1078. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. I. Koukourakis, A. Giatromanolaki, G. Fountzilas, E. Sivridis, K. C. Gatter, and A. L. Harris Angiogenesis, Thymidine Phosphorylase, and Resistance of Squamous Cell Head and Neck Cancer to Cytotoxic and Radiation Therapy Clin. Cancer Res., February 1, 2000; 6(2): 381 - 389. [Abstract] [Full Text]

				J. Fujimoto, H. Sakaguchi, R. Hirose, H. Wen, and T. Tamaya Clinical Implication of Expression of Platelet-derived Endothelial Cell Growth Factor (PD-ECGF) in Metastatic Lesions of Uterine Cervical Cancers Cancer Res., July 1, 1999; 59(13): 3041 - 3044. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]