Expression of vascular endothelial growth factor-C and angiogenesis in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Table 1 Correlation between VEGF-C mRNA expression in ESCC tissue and clinicopathological factors

Clinicopathological factors	n	VEGF-C mRNA n (%)	MVD/mm2 (mean ± SD)
TNM stage
I,II	33	11 (33.3)	60.14 ± 20.2
III, IV	10	7 (70.0)a	83.68 ± 33.6a
Histological grade
G1	12	4 (33.3)	60.5 ± 31.7
G2	20	8 (45.0)	66.30 ± 21.6
G3	11	6 (54.6)	71.66 ± 30.8
Depth of invasion
T1, T2	23	5 (21.7)	64.24 ± 19.3
T3, T4	20	13 (65.0)b	68.86 ± 31.7
Lymph node metastasis
Negative	31	10 (32.3)	58.66 ± 18.8
Positive	12	8 (66.7)a	85.30 ± 32.7a

^aP < 0.05 vs negative lymph node metastasis and TNM stages III and IV;

^bP < 0.01 vs depth of tumor invasion of T₃ and T₄.