The Clinical Value Of VEGF-C For The Differential Diagnosis Of Pleural Effusion

Objective:To study the clincical value of VEGF-C in the pleural effusion and serum for the differrential diagnosis of pleural effusion.Methods:Each 30 cases of benign and malignent pleural effusions and serums were collected individually by pneumology department of our hospital from October 2007 to October 2008. Half of them were from patients with known carcinoma diagnosed by cytomorphology (malignant group in brief) and the other half from those without known carcinoma (benign group in brief). Other 20 cases of serums from healthy people were chosen for comparison(healthy group in brief).Divide exudate and transudate group in the benign one. The expression levels of VEGF-C in serum and pleural effusion were detected by enzyme rate assy and enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA),respectively.The relationship between VEGF-C expression and the related clinical pathological factors was investigated.Results:In the group of malignant pleural effusion,VEGF-C level in the serum and pleural effusion were 1646.34±1036.32 pg/ml and 3738.30±1918.08 pg/ml respectively.In the group of benign pleural effusion,VEGF-C level in the serum and pleural effusion were 750.42±574.40 pg/ml and 1799.94±1124.04 pg/ml respectively.In the group of healthy people,the VEGF-C level in the serum was 280.56±106.71 pg/ml. It shows great statistic differences between the VEGF-C leves in the malignant group and the benign one(P<0.01),and also between the benign group and the healthy one(P<0.05).In the group of malignant pleural effusion, pleural effusion/serum VEGF-C level seems higher than the benign one,it shows statistic difference between them(t=2.130,P=0.037).VEGF-C level in exudate group shows great statistic difference than the transudate one both in the serum and effusion (P<0.01). There was no statistic correlation between the VEGF-C level and the age,gender,pathological type of lung cancer(P>0.05). But the VEGF-C level in the group who had a distant metastasis was higher than the other group which did not had a distant metastasis both in serum and effusion (in serum t=2.137,P=0.043;in effusion t=2.225,P=0.036).Conclusion:1.Detections of VEGF-C in the pleural effusion and serum is useful in the differentiatial diagnosis between malignant effusion and benign one,it also shows significant statistic difference between the exudate and transudate effusion,so it may be one of the parameters about the differentiatial diagnosis of effusions.2.There is no statistic correlation between the VEGF-C level and the age,gender,pathological type of the primary tumor,but has a positive relation with a distant metastasis both in serum and effusion.