Angiogenesis: prognostic significance in laryngeal cancer

The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of angiogenesis in the progression of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC). We correlated disease-free survival with microvessel count (MC) in the hot spot areas of 97 randomly selected caucasian males with LSCC followed for 60 to 90 months after surgery with or without radiotherapy. The results obtained indicate that: a) MC higher than 130 microvessels/mm2 is a cut-off value that distinguished patients who relapsed during the follow up period; b) multivariated analysis indicates that MC (p < 0.00001) is an independent predictor of disease free-survival; c) multivariated analysis selectively done on cases with relapse demonstrates that MC correlates with the presence of metastasis (or/and M) with local relapse (T). We suggest that MC is useful in the assessment of prognosis in LSCC and probably will permit selection of patients that could benefit from anti-angiogenic therapy associated with chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy.