Vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF A) as individual prognostic factor in invasive breast carcinoma

VEGF is a potent mitogen for endothelial cells and also acts in an autocrine and paracrine manner for development of tumor cells in breast cancer. Correlations between VEGF and some clinicopathologic findings were largely studied but results were controversial. Our purpose was to find if VEGF could be used as individual prognostic factor in invasive breast carcinoma. We included in our study 35 cases of invasive breast carcinoma, which were immunostained for VEGF using monoclonal antibodies anti-VEGF clone VG1. The assessment of VEGF expression used a scoring system, which included an intensity parameter correlated with percent of positive tumor cells. We found positive correlation between ductal invasive carcinoma type of breast cancer and VEGF expression. In addition, presence of inflammation associated with breast malignancies had a significant correlation with VEGF positive staining. Because of these correlations found in our study, we concluded that VEGF could not be used as individual prognostic factor in invasive breast carcinoma.