The results suggest that, in breast cancer, VEGF-C and VEGF-D are involved in lymphatic vessel invasion prior to lymph node metastasis, and their expression decreases after lymph node metastasis occurs.
VEGF-C and VEGF-D expressions were associated with VEGFR-3 expression and were significantly correlated with both peritumoral lymphangiogenesis and lymph node metastasis.
These findings suggest that heparanase plays a unique dual role in tumor metastasis, facilitating tumor cell invasiveness and inducing VEGF C expression, thereby increasing the density of lymphatic vessels that mobilize metastatic cells.
These data show that in human colorectal carcinoma, vascular endothelial growth factor-C and cyclooxygenase-2 are coexpressed and significantly associated with lymph node metastasis and prognosis.
Regarding the correlation between nodal metastasis and the expression of CXCR4 and VEGF-C, the incidence of nodal metastasis was significantly (p < 0.01) higher in patients with CXCR4-positive tumors than in those with CXCR4-negative tumors.
The VEGF-C expression in ESCC is related to COX-2 expression, and VEGF-C is also associated with the depth of primary tumor, the stage, and probably lymph node metastasis.
Furthermore, the group with high expression of both VEGF-C and -D in the marginal portion had a higher incidence of lymph node metastasis compared with the group with low expression (P = 0.007).
VEGF-C and its receptor FLT-4 play a role in the development of gastric cancer, and the tumors with expression of VEGF-C and FLT-4 are more likely to have lymph node metastasis.