Monitoring multiple angiogenesis-related molecules in the blood of cancer patients shows a correlation between VEGF-A and MMP-9 levels before treatment and divergent changes after surgical vs. conservative therapy

Khalil Zaman, Robert Driscoll, Diane Hahn, Patricia Werffeli, Simon L. Goodman, Jean Bauer, Serge Leyvraz, Ferdy Lejeune, Roger Stupp, Curzio Rüegg*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

40 Scopus citations

Abstract

Anti-angiogenic therapies are currently in cancer clinical trials, but to date there are no established tests for evaluating the angiogenic status of a patient. We measured 11 circulating angiogenesis-associated molecules in cancer patients before and after local treatment. The purpose of our study was to screen for possible relationships among the different molecules and between individual molecules and tumor burden. We measured VEGF-A, PIGF, SCF, MMP-9, EDB+-fibronectin, sVEGFR-2, sVEGFR-1, sαVβ3, sTie-2, IL-8 and CRP in the blood of 22 healthy volunteers, 17 early breast, 17 early colorectal, and 8 advanced sarcoma/melanoma cancer patients. Breast cancer patients had elevated levels of VEGF-A and sTie-2, colorectal cancer patients of VEGF-A, MMP-9, sTie-2, IL-8 and CRP, and melanoma/sarcoma patients of sVEGFR-1. sαVβ3 was decreased in colorectal cancer patients. A correlation between VEGF-A and MMP-9 was found. After tumor removal, MMP-9 and sαVβ3 significantly decreased in breast and CRP in colorectal cancer, whereas sVEGFR-1 increased in colorectal cancer patients. In sarcoma/melanoma patients treated regionally with TNF and chemotherapy we observed a rise in VEGF-A, SCF, VEGFR-2, MMP-9, Tie-2 and CRP, a correlation between CRP and IL-8, and a decreased in sVEGFR-1 levels. In conclusion, among all factors measured, only VEGF-A and MMP-9 consistently correlated to each other, elevated CRP levels were associated with tumor burden, whereas sVEGF-R1 increased after tumor removal in colorectal cancer. Treatment with chemotherapy and TNF induced changes consistent with an angiogenic switch. These results warrant a prospective study to compare the effect of surgical tumor removal vs. chemotherapy on some of these markers and to evaluate their prognostic/ predictive value.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)755-764
Number of pages10
JournalInternational Journal of Cancer
Volume118
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1 2006

Keywords

  • Angiogenesis
  • Chemotherapy
  • Predictive
  • Surrogate markers
  • TNF

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Oncology
  • Cancer Research

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