Evaluation Of Serum-vascular Endothelial Growth Factor In Differentiation Of Solitary Pulmonary Nodule

ObJGCtJVG With the prevalence of the technique of chest film and CT, more and more people who suffered from solitary pulmonary nodule(SPN) had been found in clinic.This trial is to evaluation of serum-vascular endothelial growth factor(S-VEGF) in differentiation of solitary pulmonary nodule.Methods According to the standard of inclusion and exclusion criteria, 68 patients who suffered from SPN were selected. Together with 20 cases of normal control group, their3serum levels of VEGF were measured by Enzyme-linked immuno-sorbent assay (ELISA).All the patients were operated on by thoracotomy, and the pathological diagnosis were obtained. There were 49 cases of malignant nodules(lung cancer) , including 26 cases of adenocarcinoma , 17 cases of squamous carcinoma , 2 cases of metastatic cancer ,2 cases of carcinosarcoma, 2 cases of carcinoid . There were 19 cases of benign nodules, including 7 cases of tuberculosis , 5 cases of chronic pneumonia, 3 cases of pulmonary hamartoma, 2 cases of pulmonary carnification, 2 cases of chronic abscess . RGSLlIt The median of the serum levels of VEGF in case of control group was 42.5 (range from 10 to 170) pg/ml. In benign nodule group, the median was 44(range from 18 to 360)pg/ml. In lung cancer group , the median was 75 (range from 18 to 890) pg/ml. All the data were transformed by means of Log in order to obtain a normal distribution . The serum levels of VEGF in the lung cancer group were significently higher than those in normal control group(P<0.01). Between the lungcancer group and the benign nodules group marked difference in the serum level of VEGF was also observed (p<0.05). However, Comparing the benign nodules group with the normal control group , there was no significant difference in the serum level of VEGF (p>0.05). In addition ,we compared the serum level of VEGF in lung cancer group with different histolic type. We found that there was no significant difference in the serum level of VEGF (p>0.05). All these results were examinated by t test (two-tailed) .Conclusions Those observations suggest that S-VEGF is valuable in differentiation of solitary pulmonary nodule . The elevated S-VEGF level in patients with SPN, which is higher than 100 pg/ml, may indicate the nodule is malignant. If the level is higher than 360 pg/ml, the operation is the first choice.