Study Of The Correlation Between VEGF-C Expression And Lymph Node Metastasis In Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Background & Objective: Nowadays in a great many countries, lung cancer occurs at very high frequencies and has been the leading cause of tumor-specific death. Lymph node metastasis plays a critical part in staging, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis on lung carcinoma. Therefore, it is one of researching focuses to investigate the mechanism of lymphatic spread of lung cancer.In the tumor stroma with lymph node metastasis, we can often detect lymphangiogenesis and lymphangiectasis. But nowadays, the molecular mechanism is still indistinct. Due to lack of specific lymphangiogenesis factors and markers, the research on lymph node metastasis was in slow progress of the past, and it was mostly focused on angiogenesis. In recent years, some growth factors and receptors specifically act on lymphangial endothelia have been found one after another, which will point out a new direction to lymphatic metastasis research for us.Vascular endothelial growth factor C (VEGF-C) recently has been identified as a new member of the VEGF family and is considered as the single specific lymphangiogenic factor. VEGF-C and its receptor VEGFR-2/ VEGFR-3 are the key players in the molecular regulation of lymphangiogenesis. Many experiments have highlighted the role of VEGF-C in tumor biology and pathology. Some studies have recently shown that VEGF-C-mediated tumor lymphangiogenesis promotes cancer metastasis including nodal metastasis. The aim of this article is to investigate the relationship between VEGF-C expression and lymphangiogenesis in non-small cell lung cancer.