Clinical relevance of VEGF receptors 1 and 2 in patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia

Verstovsek, Srdan; Lunin, Scott; Kantarjian, Hagop; Manshouri, Taghi; Faderl, Stefan; Cortes, Jorge; Giles, Francis; Albitar, Maher

doi:10.1016/S0145-2126(02)00275-8

« Previous Next »Leukemia Research
Volume 27, Issue 7 , Pages 661-669, July 2003

Clinical relevance of VEGF receptors 1 and 2 in patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia

Srdan Verstovsek
- Department of Leukemia, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, P.O. Box 428, Houston, TX 77030, USA
Scott Lunin
- Department of Leukemia, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, P.O. Box 428, Houston, TX 77030, USA
Hagop Kantarjian
- Department of Leukemia, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, P.O. Box 428, Houston, TX 77030, USA
Taghi Manshouri
- Department of Hematopathology, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, P.O. Box 72, Houston, TX 77030-4095, USA
Stefan Faderl
- Department of Leukemia, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, P.O. Box 428, Houston, TX 77030, USA
Jorge Cortes
- Department of Leukemia, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, P.O. Box 428, Houston, TX 77030, USA
Francis Giles
- Department of Leukemia, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, P.O. Box 428, Houston, TX 77030, USA
Maher Albitar
- Department of Leukemia, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, P.O. Box 428, Houston, TX 77030, USA
- Department of Hematopathology, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, P.O. Box 72, Houston, TX 77030-4095, USA
- Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-713-794-1292; fax: +1-713-794-1800.

Received 22 August 2002; accepted 24 October 2002.

Abstract

Vascularity is increased in the bone marrow of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and high vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) levels correlate with worse survival. We analyzed the significance of VEGF-receptor 1 (VEGF-R1) and VEGF-R2 levels in bone marrow samples from 170 CML patients (137 chronic, 24 accelerated, and 9 blastic phase). Median VEGF-R1 and VEGF-R2 levels were 4.66 and 2-fold, respectively, that in normal control samples. Receptor levels did not correlate with disease phase or other host and disease features examined. Chronic phase CML patients with increased VEGF-R2 levels had significantly inferior survival than patients without receptor up-regulation (P=0.009). Patients in accelerated/blastic phase CML with elevated VEGF-R2 expression had marginally worse survival (P=0.05). In contrast, high VEGF-R1 levels did not correlate with a specific CML phase, characteristic, or outcome. Our findings support VEGF-R2 over-expression as an independent prognostic indicator for shortened survival in patients with CML.

Keywords: Angiogenesis, Chronic myelogenous leukemia, VEGF receptors, Prognosis