Lymphangiogenic and Angiogenic Microvessel Density in Gastric Carcinoma

The incidence of gastric cancer worldwide, and in particular in developing countries, has shown a marked increase (Inal et al., 2012). Poor prognosis of gastric cancer patients occurs due to rapid metastasis of the disease via the lymphs as well as blood in advanced stages. Previous studies have shown that lymphatic and blood vessel invasion (LBVI) is closely correlated with characteristics of gastric cancer patients, including tumor stage, lymph node metastasis and histological type, which may be used as the indices to determine the metastasis and prognosis of gastric cancer patients (del Casar et al., 2008; Kim et al., 2010; Du et al., 2012). The antibodies D2-40 and CD34 are characterized as specificity labels of the endothelial cells of the lymphatic and blood vessels. However, the correlation of D2-40 and CD34 antibodies with clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis has yet to be adequately reported in the literature. Immunohistochemical staining was used to detect the malignant tissue using D2-40 and CD34 antibodies,