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122. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Chirurgie

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Chirurgie

05. bis 08.04.2005, München

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Prognostic Value of Lymphatic and Blood Vessel Invasion in Neuroendocrine Tumours of the Lung

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  • corresponding author K. Schmid - Department of Pathology, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
  • P. Birner - Department of Pathology, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
  • V. Gravenhorst - Department of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
  • A. End - Department of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
  • S. Geleff - Department of Pathology, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Chirurgie. 122. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Chirurgie. München, 05.-08.04.2005. Düsseldorf, Köln: German Medical Science; 2005. Doc05dgch3097

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/dgch2005/05dgch416.shtml

Published: June 15, 2005

© 2005 Schmid et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

Text

Introduction

Few data on the influence of vessel invasion on the progression of neuroendocrine (NE) lung tumors are available. Due to the lack of specific markers previous studies could not reliably discriminate lymphatic and blood vessels.

Materials

By immunostaining for podoplanin, specific for lymphatic endothelium, and CD34 antigen we assessed lymphatic and blood vessel invasion in 120 tissue specimens of patients with NE lung tumors (56 typical carcinoids, 18 atypical carcinoids, 31 small cell carcinomas, and 15 large cell NE carcinomas). Lymphovascular invasion was correlated with clinicopathological parameters and its prognostic relevance was evaluated.

Results

Lymphatic vessels were identified exclusively at the tumor invasion front whereas blood capillaries were also seen within tumors. Lymphatic vessel as well as lymphatic and blood vessel invasion were prevalent in patients with high grade NE tumors and advanced tumor stages, closely associated with lymph node metastases (p< 0.0001). In univariate analysis these two invasion types correlated with decreased disease free survival (both p< 0.0001) whereas blood vessel invasion alone did not. In multivariate analysis only tumor grade and lymph node status remained statistically significant factors for prognosis (p = 0.016 and p<0.0001).

Discussion

Our results suggest that evaluation of lymphatic vessel invasion is important in NE lung tumors serving as a prognostic parameter for disease free survival.