| Title | Vascular endothelial growth factor levels in ascites between chemonaive and chemotreated patients. | | Author(s) | Lee HK, Chae HS, Kim JS, Kim HK, Cho YS, Rho SY, Kang JH, Cho SG, Jang HS, Han K | | Institution | Department of Internal Medicine, Catholic University College of Medicine, 65-1 Kumoh-dong, Uijeongbu, Kyunggi-do 480-130, Korea. chs@catholic.ac.kr. | | Source | Yonsei Med J 2008 Jun 30; 49(3):429-35. | | Abstract | Purpose: Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) levels in malignant ascites have high diagnostic value for their discrimination from asictes of non-malignant origin. However, there have been no reports on the comparison of VEGF levels between malignant ascites of chemonaive and chemotreated patients. Materials and
Methods: VEGF levels were measured in 44 ascites patients (cirrhosis ascites, 10; chemonaive patients, 21; chemotreated patients, 13) and compared to the level of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA 19-9). The diagnostic parameters of sensitivity, specificity, and correlation among 3 markers were evaluated.
Results: VEGF levels in malignant ascites of chemonaive and chemotreated patients were significantly higher than those in cirrhotic ascites (p < 0.05). VEGF levels in ascites of chemonaive patients were significantly higher than those in chemotreated patients (p < 0.05). A cutoff value of 10.4pg/mL was calculated using receiver operating characteristic curves (ROCs) for VEGF in chemotreated and chemonaive patients, which gave sensitivities of 75.0% and 53.8% and specificities of 69.6% and 47.1%, respectively. Positive correlations were observed between VEGF and CEA (r = 0.353, p < 0.05) as well as between VEGF and CA19-9 (r = 0.367, p < 0.05) in ascites.
Conclusion: VEGF levels could be a useful tumor marker for malignant ascites, but its value should carefully be interpreted because of lesser reliability in chemotreated ones. | | Language | eng | | Pub Type(s) | Journal Article
| | PubMed ID | 18581593 |
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