Abstract:

Objective To investigate the relationships of serum thrombospondin 1（TSP-1）and vascular endothelial growth factor（VEGF） levels with the progression of primary hepatic carcinoma（PHC）,and to evaluate the 2 indicators for the early diagnosis of PHC.Methods A total of 88 PHC patients were enrolled,including 20 cases of Period Ⅰ,25 cases of Period Ⅱ and 43 cases of Period Ⅲ. A total of 40 healthy subjects were enrolled. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay（ELISA） was used to determine the levels of serum TSP-1 and VEGF. Electro-chemiluminescence was used to determine the levels of alpha-fetoprotein（AFP）. Receiver operating characteristic（ROC） curves were used to evaluate the diagnosis efficiency of TSP-1,VEGF and AFP.Results Serum TSP-1 levels of Period Ⅰ,Ⅱ and Ⅲ in PHC group were higher than that in healthy control group（P<0.05）. Serum TSP-1 level of Period Ⅲ was lower than those of Period Ⅰ and Ⅱ（P<0.05）. Serum TSP-1 levels had no statistical significance between Period Ⅰ and Ⅱ（P>0.05）. There was statistical significance for serum VEGF of Period Ⅲ in PHC group with healthy control,Period Ⅰ and Period Ⅱ groups（P<0.05）. ROC curve showed that the areas under the curves（AUC） were 0.893 for TSP-1（P<0.05）,0.712 for AFP（P<0.05） and 0.568 for VEGF（P>0.05） in the diagnosis of PHC. AUC were 0.883 for TSP-1（P<0.05）,0.821 for AFP（P<0.05） and 0.539 for VEGF（P>0.05） in the early diagnosis of PHC. Conclusions The levels of TSP-1 decrease with the progression of PHC,and the levels of VEGF gradually increase. The diagnosis efficiency of TSP-1 is better than that of AFP,and that of VEGF is limited.

Key words: Thrombospondin 1, Vascular endothelial growth factor, Primary hepatic carcinoma