Staging and Prognosis

Abstract

Andrea Salmaggi, Marica Eoli, Simona Frigerio, Antonio Silvani, Maurizio Gelati, Elena Corsini, Giovanni Broggi, Amerigo Boiardi

National Neurological Institute 'C.Besta', Milano, Italy

Intracavitary levels of VEGF, bFGF, IL-8 and IL-12 were evaluated by ELISA in 45 patients, 7 with recurrent anaplastic astrocytoma (rAA), 12 with glioblastoma (GBM) and 26 with recurrent glioblastoma (rGBM).
In 25 patients plasma levels of the molecules were also quantitated.
Twenty-three healthy controls were also studied for plasma concentrations of the same molecules.

Plasma levels of VEGF (mean 33.89 ± 6.71 pg/ml) and bFGF (mean 11.1 ± 3.24 pg/ml) were higher in patients than in controls (mean 16.78 ± 3.7 pg/ml for VEGF, mean 0.21 ± 0.09 pg/ml for bFGF) (p = 0.04 and p = 0.001, respectively) while plasma IL-12 levels were lower (mean 45.6 ± 1.5 pg/ml in patients, mean 79.7 ± 1.3 pg/ml in controls) (p = 0.009).

Intracavitary VEGF levels were 5–53.307 fold higher (mean 90,900 ± 24,789 pg/ml) than in the corresponding plasma.
Also IL-8 concentrations were higher in intracavitary fluid (mean 6,349.76 ± 1,460.93 pg/ml) than in plasma (mean 43.44 ± 24.82 pg/ml).
Maximum VEGF levels were found in tumor fluid of recurrent glioblastoma patients (mean 147,678 ± 39,903 pg/ml), intermediate levels in glioblastoma patients (mean 20,322 ± 11,892 pg/ml) and lower levels in rAA patients (mean 9,111 ± 5,789 pg/ml).
The data also suggest that higher intracavitary levels of VEGF and IL-8, and lower IL-12 levels, may be correlated with shorter adjunctive survival times, but more data will need to be collected to establish this correlation clearly.

Keywords: bFGF, IL-8, IL-12,VEGF, endocavitary fluid, glial tumors

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