Study On Relationship Between Intratumoral Lymphangiogenesis Of Laryngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma And Lymphatic Metastasis

Objective: To elucidate the relationship between the intratumoral lym-phangiogenesis and lymphatic metastasis, and provide some theoretic evidence for the judgement of lymph node metastasis and prognosis of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC), also for the treatment.Methods: An immunohistochemical analysis was performed to 50 specimens of LSCC with lymphatic endothelial marker LYVE-1, the vascular endothelial marker CD34 and the pKi67 proliferation marker to record lymphatic vessel density (LVD). Quantitation of lymphangiogenesis growth factor VEGF-C by RT-PCR was performed to 30 specimens of LSCC. Finally the correlation between LVD and tumor TNM grade, VEGF-C mRNA, grade of differation was analyzed with statistics methods.Results: Newly proliferating lymphatic were observed in all LSCC. The median copy number of VEGF-C mRNA was 4-5-fold higher in LSCC than in adjacent normal tissue. There was correlation between tumor VEGF-C mRNA copy number and intratumoral LVD(n=30, p<0.05), there was no significant association between LVD and sex, T stage and grade of differation(n=50, p>0.05)but N stage(n=50,p<0.05)Conclusion: Newly proliferating lymphatic vessels existed in LSCC. There was correlation between high levels of LVD in LSCC than in normal tissue. And the high level of VEGF-C may accelerate the lymphatic metastasis by promoting the proliferation of intratumoral lymphatic.