| IntroductionAngiogenesis is an essential part of a variety of physiological and pathological processes, including embryogenesis, wound healing, inflammation and tumor progression. It is regulated by numerous different molecules. Fibroblast growth factors ( FGFs) are a family of related polypeptides that have the ability to influence mitosis and inhibit apoptosis. The acidic FGF and basic FGF are two most important factors of FGFs. Basic fibroblast growth factor ( bFGF) was found to exert mitogenic and angiogenic influences on a variety of tissues and to regulate processes of carcinogenesis and metastasis in tumors. Immunohistochemical staining for CD34, a sensitive marker of vascular endothelium, is used to evaluate microvessel density (MVD) in numerous tumor tissues. Assessment of bFGF expression significantly correlates with MVD in different types of tumors. But the relation in ameloblastoma has not been reported yet.AB is the most frequently occurring odontogenic tumor, the frequency of which varies in different areas and countries. AB is considered as a benign tumor by WHO. However, it may progressively invade the jaw, recur locally and transform malignantly. AB is therefore treated as a semimalignancy. We detected the expression of bFGF and MVD, assessed by the use of anti - CD34 antibody using the immunohistochemistry technique, and studied the relation of cell differentiation and its clinical biololgical behavior in AB to provide some theoretic basis for the diagnosis, therapy and prognosis of AB.Materials and methodsAll the samples used in immunohistochemical study were obtained from the patients admitted to Collage of Stomatology and the First AfQliated Hospital of China Medical University, which included 61 cases of AB( primary AB 36 cases , recurrent AB 19 cases, malignant AB 6 cases) , 11 cases of OKC and 4 cases of normal oral mucosa. We used a scoring system to evaluate semiquantia-tively the immunoexpression of bFGF, judging brown plasma staining as positive. The product of sum score and intensity score was classified into three groups: negative;weak positive; strong positive. MVD: after scanning 3 areas showing the highest neovascularization ( hotspots) at 40 - fold manigfation, the number of CD34 - positive vessels was counted in the hotspots at 200 - fold magnification double - blindly. The average count was recorded as MVD. Kruskal -wallis test, ANOVA test of SPSS for 11.5 statistical software were used to analyze the data. Kendalls tau - b rank correlation test was used to evaluate the relation between bFGF and MVD. A p - value of less than 0. 05 was considered significant.ResultsbFGF was weakly positive expressed in the plasma of normal mucosa (50. 0% ). In 11 cases of OKC, the positive expression increased, the ratio was 72. 7%. In 61 cases of AB, the expression was moderate or strong ( 86.9% ) in peripheral cells and stellate central cells. There was a significant difference in these three groups ( P <0.01). bFGF expression increased gradually in primary, recurrent and malignant AB. The difference between them was significant(P < 0.05). But different cells might have different expression. There were negative or weakly positive expression in keratinized cells and granular cells.The CD34 positive vessels were scattered under the epithelium of 4 cases of normal mucosa. In OKC, vessels appeared in catenuliform or clustered very close to epithelial and the quantity was more than that in normal epithelial. InAB, CD34 was extensively positive expressed. In malignant AB, vessels appeared in catenuliform around invasive tumor cells or were sleeved by tumor cells. In benign AB, vessels were extensive scattered or appeared in cluster a-round invasive tumor cell. Immunoreactivy for CD34 suggested that vascular number was related with cell differentiation, and vessels were rarely found a-round keratinized and degraded cells. Comparing AB with OKC and normal oral mucosa, there was a great difference in MVD (P < 0.001). MVD increased gradually in primary, recurrent and malig...
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