The Correlation Between Endocan, VEGF, MMP-9 And Pituitary Adenomas Apoplexy

Background Pituitary tumors are common benign tumors, its incidence after intracranial gliomas and meningiomas, accounting for about 10%-15% of intracranial tumors, there is a growing trend in recent years. Pituitary adenoma apoplexy is a syndrome caused by infarction or hemorrhage of pituitary tumors, manifestes as sudden headache, visual impairment, ophthalmoplegia, and some patients may present severe neurological symptoms, coma and even death.Most patients did not know their pituitary tumors before the onset of their disease and no obvious predisposing factors.The majority of current research on pituitary apoplexy is limited to the scope of clinical diagnosis and treatment,studies for the pathogenesis and biological behavior are rarely reported. Endocan is an endothelial cell-specific molecule newly discovered in recent years, in a variety of tumors, such as lung cancer, liver cancer, renal cancer, gastric cancer,it has elevated levels, but its expression in pituitary apoplexy and the role it plays has not been reported. A lot of literature has reported that VEGF, MMP-9 may play a role in a variety of bleeding disorders and intracranial tumor hemorrhage, but the roles of above factors play in the process of pituitary adenoma apoplexy occuration, although have been few reported, but the results are quite different, it is worth of further study.Objective To detect the expression of endocan, VEGF, MMP-9 in pituitary tumor tissue specimens with immunohistochemical methods, and to detect the expression levels endocan m RNA of pituitary tumor tissue samples by RT-PCR. Explore the correlation between the three factors, to further elaborate the mechanism of pituitary apoplexy, and lay the foundation for further experimental and clinical research in the future and also provide the basis for the prevention and treatment of pituitary apoplexy.Methods In this study,we selected 80 pathological tissue samples(Pathology archived paraffin-embedded specimens) taken in patients with pituitary tumor surgery in the department of neurosurgery Tianjin Huanhu Hospital from January 2005 to December,2014.divided them into two growps according to the difference of apoplexy(40cases) and non-apoplex(40cases). We detect the expression of endocan,VEGF, MMP-9 in the two growps with immunohistochemical methods, the result is determined with to IRS(immunorective score) semi-quantitative method, the IRS score results were analyzed statistically.We also selected fresh pathological tissue samples taken in patients with pituitary tumor surgery in the department of neurosurgery Tianjin Huanhu Hospital from January, 2014 to October 2015.Divided them into two growps according to the difference of apoplexy(10cases) and non-apoplexy(10cases).We detected the expression levels endocan m RNA of pituitary tumor tissue samples by RT-PCR and the results were statistically analyzed.Results 1. Maximum diameter of tumors in apoplexy growp is greater than that in non-apoplexy growps, but there is no significant difference between the two growps(P=0.648 P>0.05).2. The expression of endocan in apoplexy growp is higher than that in non-apoplexy growps( P=0.002 P<0.05).3. The expression of VEGF in apoplexy growp is higher than that in non-apoplexy growps(P=0.016 P<0.05)4. The expression of MMP-9 in apoplexy growp is higher than that in non-apoplexy growps(P=0.001 P<0.05)5. The expression of endocan mRNA in apoplexy growp is higher than that in non-apoplexy growps(P=0.001 P<0.05)6. The expression of Endocn, VEGF and MMP-9 in apoplexy growp has significant correlation.Conclusion Compared with non-apoplexy pituitary adenomas, The expression of endocan, VEGF and MMP-9 in apoplexy pituitary adenomas is higer. there is a significant correlation between the expression level of expression of endocan, VEGF and MMP-9. These three factors may play an important role in the process of pituitary adenoma apoplexy.