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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2011 Sep 1.
Published in final edited form as: Pathophysiology. 2009 Dec 24;17(4):229–251. doi: 10.1016/j.pathophys.2009.11.003

Table 6.

Association of lymphatic vessel density (LVD) with lymphatic metastasis in breast cancer

# of
Patients
Method of
Analysis
Comments P valueb Reference
180 IHCa Higher than median LVD a was significantly associated
with unfavorable prognosis
P=0.033 [88]
177 IHC Tumors with higher total LVD were significantly
associated with LN metastasis and shorter OS a
P<0.001 [23]
121 IHC Intratumoral lymphatic vessels were present in ~10% of all
patients and did not correlate with LN metastasis.
Peritumoral lymphatic vessel density was not assessed
NS [80]
113 IHC LVD also strongly correlated with poor DFS a and OS
(P=0.0033 & P=0.0391)
P<0.0001 [70]
87 IHC D2-40-stained intratumoral lymph vessels were present in
80% of non-inflammatory and 82.8% of inflammatory
breast cancers specimens
P=0.001 [24]
80 IHC Higher LVD correlated with the number of positive LN in
patients with invasive micropapillary breast carcinoma
P=0.045 [236]
75 IHC Lymphatic vessel density was unrelated to LN status NS [77]
61 IHC LVD was higher in breast carcinoma than in benign
mammary lesions and significantly correlated with higher
expression of VEGF-C and VEGF-D, P<0.01
P<0.01 [69]
61 IHC Intratumoral lymphatic vessels were reduced or absent in
tumors compared with normal breast tissue. Peritumoral
LVD was not assessed
N/A [79]
55 IHC There was an increase in peritumoral LVD as compared
with normal breast) but a decrease in intratumoral LVD
(both P = 0.0001)
P = 0.0001 [78]
29 qRT-PCR LVD also correlated with VEGF-C and VEGF-D
expression measured by qRT-PCR (P=0.0291)
P=0.0558 [238]
a

Abbreviations: IHC, immunohistochemistry; LVD, lymphatic vessel density; OS, overall survival; DFS, disease-free survival; other abbreviations are given under Table 1.

b

P value indicates association of intratumoral or peritumoral LVD with LN metastasis.

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