Vascular Hot Spots Could Define Prognosis In Gynecological Tumors.(Brief Article)

2001 NOV 15 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - Vascular 'hot spots' in the tumors of patients with uterine cervical cancer could provide significant information about patient prognosis.

Scientists know that tumor vascularity can predict the way cancer is likely to grow and progress over time. However, according to medical investigators in Germany, "tumor microvessel density might not just represent the angiogenic potential of the neoplastic cells but could also be influenced by the primary vascularization of the host tissue."

A current study of 52 cervical cancer patients for tumor and host tissue vascularity may redefine the way scientists analyze neovascularization and cancer progression in the future.

S. Hockel and others at the University of Leipzig's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology did the tissue evaluations, analyzing vascular density in normal cervical stroma as well as tumor samples. Their examinations revealed median vascular density was greatest at the periphery of the tumor samples and least at the core of the tumors.

"Vascular densities of the tumor periphery were related to the vascular densities of the normal cervical stroma and did not depend on tumor size, whereas the vascular densities of the tumor core were independent of the vascular densities of the normal cervical stroma and decreased with increasing size," Hockel and colleagues said.

Approximately two-thirds of the tumors bore microvascular hot spots on their periphery, while a ...