Vascular Endothelial Growth Factors and Angiopoietins in Presentations and Prognosis of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma

Aims: Angiogenesis from thyroid cancer cell plays the important roles in post-surgical persistent, recurrent, and metastatic papillary thyroid cancer (PTC). This study is to investigate the expression of angiopoietin-1 (Ang-1), angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2), Tek/Tie-2 receptor, and vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGF) in normal, benign thyroid tissues and different stage of PTC. We expect angiogenetic factors are important in the presentation of local-regional neck or distant metastases in PTC. Materials and Results: A total of 101 tissues from the subjects underwent thyroidectomy were enrolled in the study. There were 22 control and 79 thyroid cancer patients in different TNM stagings were collected. Ang-1 illustrated highest mean immunostaining score in metastatic group. Comparing with normal and benign thyroid tissues, thyroid cancer tissues illustrated significantly high expression of three angiogenetic factors and Tie-2 receptor. Of the PTC, significantly high expression of three angiogenetic factors and Tie-2 receptor were illustrated in recurrent cases. VEGF showed statistical difference in disease-free cancer mortality, and recurrent groups. Conclusions: Immunochemical staining illustrated VEGF, Ang-1, Ang-2 expression in PTC tissues related to clinical staging; however, we need more information concerning these factors with long-term follow-up results. J. Surg. Oncol 2011; 103: 395-399. (C) 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.