Prospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 21, 2015; 21(19): 6018-6025
Published online May 21, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i19.6018
Vascular endothelial growth factor and tryptase changes after chemoembolization in hepatocarcinoma patients
Girolamo Ranieri, Michele Ammendola, Ilaria Marech, Annamaria Laterza, Ines Abbate, Caroline Oakley, Angelo Vacca, Rosario Sacco, Cosmo Damiano Gadaleta
Girolamo Ranieri, Ilaria Marech, Caroline Oakley, Cosmo Damiano Gadaleta, Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology Unit with Integrated Section of Translational Medical Oncology, National Cancer Research Centre, Istituto Tumori “Giovanni Paolo II”, 70124 Bari, Italy
Michele Ammendola, Rosario Sacco, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, Clinical Surgery Unit, University of “Magna Graecia”, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
Annamaria Laterza, Ines Abbate, Department of Experimental Oncology, Laboratory of Analyses, Cancer Institute “Giovanni Paolo II”, 70124 Bari, Italy
Angelo Vacca, Department of Internal Medicine and Clinical Oncology, University of Bari Medical School, 70124 Bari, Italy
Author contributions: Ranieri G ideated and finalized the research and the manuscript; Ammendola M, Marech I and Sacco R performed literature research, data analysis, and made the figures and tables of the manuscript; Laterza A, Abbate I and Vacca A performed the enzyme-linked immuno-absorbent assay (ELISA) and fluoro-enzyme immunoassay (FEIA) for the assessment of VEGF and tryptase concentrations, respectively; Gadaleta CD performed trans-arterial chemoembolization; all authors wrote the manuscript and Oakley C edited the manuscript.
Supported by A research grant from the “Alleanza Contro il Cancro” project (partly), the Italian National Health Institute and the Italian Ministry of Health.
Ethics approval: The study was reviewed and approved by the Committee Ethics of Policlinico Universitario "Mater Domini", Università "Magna Graecia" di Catanzaro, Italy.
Clinical trial registration: The registration identification number is protocol number 2011.61.
Informed consent: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest in the research.
Data sharing: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Girolamo Ranieri, MD, Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology Unit with Integrated Section of Translational Medical Oncology, National Cancer Research Centre, Istituto Tumori “Giovanni Paolo II”, Via Orazio Flacco 65, 70124 Bari, Italy. giroran@tiscalinet.it
Telephone: +39-80-5555561 Fax: +39-80-5555563
Received: September 26, 2014
Peer-review started: September 29, 2014
First decision: December 2, 2014
Revised: December 20, 2014
Accepted: March 19, 2015
Article in press: March 19, 2015
Published online: May 21, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: Experimental data suggest that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and tryptase play a role in tumour angiogenesis. This study aims to assess VEGF and tryptase serum concentrations from 71 hepatocellular cancer patients before and after hepatic trans-arterial chemoembolization (TACE) by mean of enzyme-linked immuno-absorbent assay and fluoro-enzyme immunoassay methods respectively. Here, we demonstrated higher serum VEGF levels and lower tryptase levels following TACE as compared to pre-TACE levels. We suggest that changes of VEGF and tryptase levels may be biomarkers of response to therapy. In this context tryptase and VEGF receptor axis inhibitors may be evaluated as adjuvant therapies.