Vascular endothelial growth factors and liver diseases

Vascular endothelial growth factor plays an important role in neovascularization both in normal tissues and most tumors. It has been extensively investigated recently in various hepatic diseases such as primary and secondary hepatocellular carcinoma, liver cirrhosis, hepatitis and even benign tumors in liver. Vascular endothelial growth factor has been verified to be closely involved in the development and metastases of hepatocellular carcinoma and correlated to the high risk of hepatic metastases and a poor prognosis in gastrointestinal cancer. Using antibodies to vascular endothelial growth factor or other drugs to suppress its expression has also been successfully tried to restrain hepatocellular carcinoma cells and metastases in vitro and in animal models. The protein of vascular endothelial growth factor has an inclination to increase in acute and chronic hepatitis and tends to decrease in cirrhosis both in tissue expression and circulating levels. This circulating level is closely related to the Child-Pugh classification in cirrhotic liver. However, there are indeed some disagreements concerning vascular endothelial growth factor and liver disease, for example, opinions on the positive rates of vascular endothelial growth factor in protein and mRNA level are far from reaching a general consensus. Further study should be performed in the future in antitumor research and its significance in the process of liver cirrhosis.