Simultaneous elevation of the serum concentrations of vascular endothelial growth factor and interleukin‐6 as independent predictors of prognosis in aggressive non‐Hodgkin's lymphoma

Abstract

Therapeutic approaches for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) are currently based on the International Prognostic Index (IPI). Research on biological prognostic factors has been actively pursued in recent years, with serum vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) being identified as prognostic factors for NHL. Here, we determined that serum VEGF and IL-6 levels are independent prognostic factors for aggressive lymphoma. Compared with normal controls, serum VEGF and IL-6 levels were significantly higher in patients with aggressive lymphoma or adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma. Furthermore, overall and disease-free survival rates for patients with high levels of VEGF or IL-6 were significantly poorer than for patients with low levels. In addition, the prognosis for patients with high levels of both serum VEGF and IL-6 was significantly poorer than that for patients with high levels of either VEGF or IL-6 or with low levels of both VEGF and IL-6. Multivariate analyses of a variety of prognostic factors, including the five IPI factors, revealed that serum VEGF and IL-6 were both independent prognostic factors for overall survival of aggressive lymphoma. Therefore, a combination of VEGF and IL-6 represents a useful prognostic factor for aggressive lymphoma.

Increased bone marrow microvascular density in haematological malignancies is associated with differential regulation of angiogenic factors

“…28 Increased levels of circulating VEGF have been demonstrated previously in patients with the haematological malignancies in this study. [29][30][31][32] Higher pretreatment plasma levels of VEGF in patients who did not obtain CR has been demonstrated previously in AML 29 and NHL. 32,33 Interleukin-6 is another activator of angiogenesis 5 and an important growth factor for myeloma cells.…”

“…[29][30][31][32] Higher pretreatment plasma levels of VEGF in patients who did not obtain CR has been demonstrated previously in AML 29 and NHL. 32,33 Interleukin-6 is another activator of angiogenesis 5 and an important growth factor for myeloma cells. IL-8 is a proangiogenic chemokine, which serves as a growth factor in several tumour models.…”

“…We found IL-8 to be the most upregulated gene. IL-6 levels in plasma have previously been shown to be elevated in patients with NHL 32 and CLL. 34 Furthermore, elevated IL-6 plasma levels are apparently associated to more advanced CLL stage 35 as well as to poor outcome in both NHL 32 and CLL.…”

“…IL-6 levels in plasma have previously been shown to be elevated in patients with NHL 32 and CLL. 34 Furthermore, elevated IL-6 plasma levels are apparently associated to more advanced CLL stage 35 as well as to poor outcome in both NHL 32 and CLL. 34,35 In contrast, plasma IL-6 reportedly did not correlate with treatment response in patients with MM, 36 and no significant differences were found according to MM stage.…”

Methods and biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of cancer and other diseases: Towards personalized medicine

“…In addition to the here presented new concepts for therapy monitoring, several markers exist, that are mostly useful for the therapy evaluation in a single disease or confined to a cluster of malignancies (Diamandis and Yousef, 2002;Kok et al, 2003;Niitsu et al, 2002;Riley et al, 2003;Trieb and Kotz, 2001). Therefore, to cover a broad spectrum of diseases a typical clinical laboratory would need to be furnished with reagents for hundreds of different types of tests.…”