Expression and clinical significance of VEGF and markers of EMT in gastric cancer

To explore the association of the levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and markers of epithelial − mesenchymal transition (EMT) in gastric cancer with histopathological features and long-term prognosis. Immunohistochemistry was used to quantitatively assess the expression of VEGF in gastric cancer tissues and adjacent tissues and to detect the expression level of EMT markers in gastric cancer tissues. Here we show that VEGF and EMT markers expression were significantly correlated with depth of tumor invasion and gastric cancer stage (P P P < 0.05), whereas VEGF and N-cadherin were positively correlated (r = 0.214, P < 0.05). Furthermore, Kaplan-Meier analysis and a Cox regression model were used to analyze the effect of VEGF and EMT marker expression on the survival of the patients. We found that the overall survival of gastric cancer patients was correlated with VEGF (P P P = 0.002) expression and parts of histopathological features. VEGF and EMT markers exist side by side and play a part together in the development of gastric cancer, which provides new ideas for evaluating the prognosis of gastric cancer and researching targeted drugs.