CORRELATION LEVEL OF SERUM vascular endothelial growth factor SIZE OF PRIMARY TUMOR IN BREAST CANCER
ABSTRACT: Breast canceris among the priorityhealthproblems, globally and nationally. Key success of breast cancer treatment depends on early detectionandcomprehensive clinical management, especially by using appropriateprognostic factorsaffectingclinicaloutcomes. Metastasisand the increase of primary tumor size is related with poor prognosis. Tumor progressionandmetastasisis closely related tothe process ofangiogenesis.Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) is a proangiogenesis factor that plays important role in the angiogenesis process. However, various studies concerning the roles of VEGF in breast cancer showed inconsistent results. Until currently, in Sardjito Teaching Hospital, no particular study was conducted to assess the correlation of serum VEGF levels with tumor size in breast cancer patients. This study specifically aims to assess the correlation of VEGF serum levels with the size of the primary tumor in breast cancer. Subjects wereoperable breast cancer patients who visited the Oncology Tulip clinic and underwent treatment at the ward. Data were collected from various sources including interviews with questionnaires, medical record file and results of sample examination. Data normality was assessed withSaphiro Wilk test. Accordingly, mean differences of VEGF serum levels between groups were assessed with Independent-ttest or Mann Whitney and One way Annova test. To obtain the correlation between VEGF serum levels with tumor size, Spearman correlation has been applied. The study included 40 patients with operable breast cancer. The results of this study showed that the median of VEGF serum was 541.53 (96.87 to 1413.48) pg/mL. VEGF serum meanof breast cancer subjects with stage IBwas 132.29 (± 50.18) pg/mL, stage IIA was 541.09 (± 315.03) pg / ml, stage IIB was 582.5 (± 296.27) pg/mL, stage IIIA 713.70 (± 432.05) pg/mL, and stage IIIB was 900.90 (± 724.90) pg/mL. There weremean differences of VEGF serum levels based on the clinical stage of breast cancer. No mean differences of VEGF serum were found between subjects withtumor size of T1, T2, and T3 and those with and without lymph node metastasis. However, there was a positive correlation between serum VEGF levels with the size of the primary tumor in breast cancer, with r = 0.46 and p = 0.03. Key words : breast cancer, tumor size, angiogenesis, Vascular EndothelialGrowth Factor, serum
