Relationship Between Lymphangiogenesis And Lymphatic Metastasis Of Gastric Carcinoma And Exploration To Antilymphangiogenic Therapy

The gastric carcinoma is the most common malignant tumor in the alimentary tract. Up to now, surgery is the main method to treat gastric cancer, but most of patients, who had already undergone radical surgery and chemotherapy, still have poor prognosis because of the tumor's metastasis and recurrence. Metastasis of gastric cancer occurs primarily through the lymphatic system, and the extent of lymph node involvement is a key prognostic factor for the disease and forms the basis of surgical removal of local lymph nodes.The mechanisms of angiogenesis have been studied extensively over the past years. The focus, however, has been almost exclusively on blood vessels, whereas little effort has been directed toward understanding lymphangiogenesis and the role of lymphatic vessels in physiology and pathology. The reason is mainly that there is no definite lymphatic vessel generated and marked factors. Therefore, little is known about the mechanisms underlying lymphatic metastasis in gastric carcinoma.Recently, following the advancement of research and discovery of specified lymph vessel endotheliocyte expressing proteins and generated factors, it has been realized that the lymph vessel plays a very important role in the procedure of tumor metastasis. Using the novel molecular markers, tumor lymphangiogenesis and lymphatic metastasis have attracted more and more attention and have been the new targets of researching tumor metastasis.Lately, not only the phenomenon of lymph vessel's expansion and hyperplasy in the tumor matrix having lymph node metastasis, but also the growing factors and their receptors specified acting on lymph vessel endotheliocyte have been discovered in the course of studying lymphatic...