Plasma levels and expression of vascular endothelial growth factor-A in human localized prostate cancer

Although the impact of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is clearly established in advanced prostate cancer (PCa), its role in localized PCa remains to be determined. The aim of our study was to analyse the plasma levels of VEGF-A and the expression of VEGF-A in prostatic tissue in a population of patients with localized PCa. We measured the preoperative plasma levels of VEGF-A in 100 patients undergoing radical prostatectomy (RP) for clinically-localized PCa. After intervention, we determined the expression of VEGF-A in all RP specimens using immunohistochemistry. We found no association between plasma levels of VEGF-A and the established prognostic factors of PCa. Moreover, there was no association between plasma levels of VEGF-A and the expression of VEGF-A in prostatic tissue. On the contrary, there was a strong correlation between the expression of VEGF-A in PCa tissue and the Gleason score of cancer: the expression of VEGF-A was significantly higher in patients with a high Gleason score on RP specimen (p=0.01). Our results suggest that the expression of VEGF may have a prognostic impact in clinically-localized PCa.