Microvessel density is a prognostic marker of human gastric cancer

Table 1 Correlation between MVD, COX-2 and VEGF expression and clinicopathologic parameters of gastric cancer

Clinicopathologic features	n	MVD			VEGF			COX-2
		Low MVD(n = 37)	High MVD(n = 30)	P	-(n = 16)	+~++(n = 51)	P	-(n = 16)	+~++(n = 51)	P
Gender				1.000			0.131			0.431
Male	54	30	24		15	39		14	40
Female	13	7	6		1	12		2	11
Age (yr)				1.000			0.820			0.820
< 55	31	17	14		7	24		7	24
≥ 55	36	20	16		9	27		9	27
Size of tumor (cm)				0.227			0.636			0.218
< 5	30	14	16		8	22		5	25
≥ 5	37	23	14		8	29		11	26
Lymph node metastasis				0.003			0.528			0.231
Yes	33	12	21		9	24		10	23
No	34	25	9		7	27		6	28
Depth of invasion				0.280			0.001			0.016
Mucosa and submucosa	9	3	6		6	3		5	4
Muscularis propria	58	34	24		10	48		11	47
TNM stage				0.280			0.342			0.342
I and II	58	34	24		15	43		15	43
III and IV	9	3	6		1	8		1	8

MVD: Microvessel density; VEGF: Vessel endothelial growth factor; COX-2: Cyclooxygenase-2; -: Negative; +~++: Positive to strong positive.

Table 2 Multivariate analysis of overall survival in gastric cancer

Variable	Regressioncoefficient	Standarderror (SE)	Odds ratio(95% CI)	P
Microvessel density (MVD)	1.069	0.503	0.727-0.893	0.033
Lymph node metastasis	1.168	0.457	1.312-7.882	0.011

Table 3 Relationship between expressions of VEGF, COX-2 and MVD of gastric cancer (mean ± SD)

Group	n	MVD	P
VEGF			0.008
–	16	20.14 ± 4.52
+~++	51	29.46 ± 8.28
COX-2			0.005
–	16	22.32 ± 3.80
+~++	51	29.88 ± 8.52

VEGF: Vessel endothelial growth factor; COX-2: Cyclooxygenase-2; MVD: Microvessel density; -: Negative; +~++: Positive to strong positive.

Table 4 Relationship between VEGF and COX-2 expression in gastric cancer

VEGF	COX-2		r	P
	–	+~++
–	9	7	0.425	< 0.001
+~++	7	44

VEGF: Vessel endothelial growth factor; COX-2: Cyclooxygenase-2; -: Negative; +~++: Positive to strong positive.