Neoadjuvant multidrug chemotherapy including High-Dose Methotrexate modifies VEGF expression in Osteosarcoma: an immunohistochemical analysis

BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders

Research Article

Diego Signorelli¹  Barone Carlo¹  Giovanni Schinzari¹  Giulio Maccauro²  Barbara Rossi²  Carlo Fabbriciani²  Laura Scaramuzzo²  Michele A Rosa³ 

[1] Department of Medical Oncology, Catholic University, Agostino Gemelli Hospital, Rome, Italy;Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, Catholic University, Agostino Gemelli Hospital, Rome, Italy;Department of Orthopaedics, Messina University, Messina, Italy;

关键词: Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor;    Osteosarcoma;    Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Expression;    Local Relapse;    High Grade Osteosarcoma;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2474-11-34

 received in 2009-07-22, accepted in 2010-02-16,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundAngiogenesis plays a role in the progression of osteosarcoma, as well as in other mesenchymal tumors and carcinomas, and it is most commonly assessed by vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression or tumor CD31-positive microvessel density (MVD). Tumor VEGF expression is predictive of poor prognosis, and chemotherapy can affect the selection of angiogenic pattern. The aim of the study was to investigate the clinical and prognostic significance of VEGF and CD31 in osteosarcoma, both at diagnosis and after neoadjuvant chemotherapy, in order to identify a potential role of chemotherapy in angiogenic phenotype.MethodsA retrospective analysis was performed on 16 patients with high grade osteosarcoma. In each case archival pre-treatment biopsy tissue and post-chemotherapy tumor specimens were immunohistochemically stained against CD31 and VEGF, as markers of angiogenic proliferation both in newly diagnosed primary osteosarcoma and after multidrug chemotherapy including high-dose methotrexate (HDMTX). The correlation between clinicopathological parameters and the degree of tumor VEGF and CD31 expression was statistically assessed using the χ2 test verified with Yates' test for comparison of two groups. Significance was set at p < 0,05.ResultsExpression of VEGF was positive in 11 cases/16 of cases at diagnosis. Moreover, 8 cases/16 untreated osteosarcomas were CD31-negative, but the other 8 showed an high expression of CD31. VEGF expression in viable tumor cells after neoadjuvant chemotherapy was observed in all cases; in particular, there was an increased VEGF expression (post-chemotherapy VEGF - biopsy VEGF) in 11 cases/16. CD31 expression increased in 11 cases/16 and decreased in 3 cases after chemotherapy. The data relating to the change in staining following chemotherapy appear statistically significant for VEGF expression (p < 0,05), but not for CD31 (p > 0,05).ConclusionsEven if the study included few patients, these results confirm that VEGF and CD31 expression is affected by multidrug chemotherapy including HDMTX. The expression of angiogenic factors that increase microvessel density (MVD) can contribute to the penetration of chemotherapeutic drugs into the tumor in the adjuvant stage of treatment. So VEGF could have a paradoxical effect: it is associated with a poor outcome but it could be a potential target for anti-angiogenic therapy.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Rossi et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.