Mesothelioma Test

Recent findings support the belief that selective angiogenic cytokines may contribute to progressive changes of mesothelioma by tumor angiogenesis.

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), acidic and basic fibroblast growth factors (FGF-1 and -2), and transforming growth factor beta (TGF(beta)) are potent angiogenic cytokines. Malignant mesothelioma of the pleura presents with a high intra-tumoral microvascular density (IMD) which also has prognostic relevance, noted S. Kumar-Singh and colleagues, University of Antwerp, Belgium.

Kumar-Singh et al. designed a study to verify the immunohistochemical expression of the angiogenic cytokines in mesothelioma as well as in non-neoplastic human mesothelial cells and to study the individual as well as the combined expression of these cytokines in mesothelioma in relation to both IMD and prognosis ("Angiogenic Cytokines in Mesothelioma: A Study of VEGF, FGF-1 and -2, and TGF Beta Expression," J Pathol, September 1999;189(1):72-78).

Additionally, the researchers studied four mesothelioma cell lines by ELISA for the secretion of VEGF and FGF-2 in their supernatants, and these cell lines were found to contain high levels of both of these cytokines.

Immunohistochemically, VEGF, FGF-1 and -2, and TGF(beta) immunoreactivity was present in 81, 67, 92, and 96 percent of mesotheliomas, and in 20, 50, 40, and 10 percent of samples of the non-neoplastic mesothelium, respectively.

The researchers observed coordinate expression of the cytokines whereby mesotheliomas expressed more than one cytokine. Combined immunohistochemical expression levels for all four cytokines correlated significantly with both IMD (p=0.01) and prognosis (p=0.0013). When studied individually, high FGF-2 expression correlated best with more tumor aggressiveness and worse prognosis for mesothelioma (p=0.0011).

There was no significant correlation between prognosis and immunoexpression of VEGF (p=0.07), FGF-1 (p=0.3), or TGF(beta) (p=0.1), or between IMD and any of the cytokines studied individually, Kumar-Singh et al. reported.

These data support the assertion that selective angiogenic cytokines might contribute to the progressive changes of mesothelioma by tumor angiogenesis.

Mesothelioma |