Table 5. Summary of studies assessing the prognostic value of vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGFs) in OTSCC providing unadjusted or adjusted estimates of HRand their 95% CIs for one or more endpoints, the HRs contrasting positive to negative expression.
| (Authors, year) Country | Stage or tumour size (primary treatment) | Primary antibody | Cutoff point in percentage | No. of cases | No. of positive cases (%) | Endpoint | Unadjusted analysis | Adjusted analysis | Compliance to REMARK guidelines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (Mineta et al, 2002) Japan | I-IV (Radical treatment) | VEGF-A, monoclonal, M293 (1 : 1000; R&D, Abingdon, UK) | 10 | 109 | 69 (63.3) | OS | P=0.0002 | NA | Checklist no. 5 was not fulfilled |
| RFS | P<0.0001 | HRa 8.69 (95% CI 3.92–19.23) | |||||||
| (Shao et al, 2008) China | T1–T4 (S) | VEGF-A, monoclonal (1 : 100; ZYMED Ltd., South San Francisco, CA) | 50 | 59 | 44 (74.6) | OS | HR 11.14 (95% CI 1.99–62.35), P=0.004 | HR 8.74 (95% CI 2.13–53.38), P=0.045 | Checklist no. 5 was not fulfilled |
| Recurrence | P=0.019 | NA | |||||||
| (Petera et al, 2015) Czech | T1–T3 (S+HDR BT in all patients, 12 had also ND) | VEGF-A, polyclonal (1 : 200; Abbiotec, San Diego, CA) | NA | 30 | NA | OS | HR 5.40 (95% CI 1.25–23.25), P=0.023 | NA | Checklist no. 5 was not fulfilled |
| DFS | HR 3.82 (95% CI 1.01–14.49), P=0.049 | P=0.04 | |||||||
| Local recurrence | NA | NA | |||||||
| Regional recurrence | HR 5.52 (95% CI 1.06–28.78), P=0.042 | NA | |||||||
| (Imayama et al, 2015) Japan | I–IV (S) | VEGF-A (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Inc., Texas, USA) | HSCORE ≥75 (percentage stained multiplied by intensity score) | 61 | 30 (49.2) | DSS | VEGF-A: HR 8.24 (95% CI 1.01–67.07), P<0.05 | VEGF-A: HR 3.68 (95% CI 0.19–73.31), P=0.37 | All checklist items were fulfilled |
| VEGF-C (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Inc., Texas, USA) | 23 (37.7) | DSS | VEGF-C: HR 3.155 (95% CI 0.75–13.27), P=0.12 | NA | Checklist no. 5 was not fulfilled | ||||
| (Morita et al, 2014) Japan | I–IV (S+ND) | VEGF-C, polyclonal (1 : 100; Novus Biologicals Inc, Littleton, CO, USA) | 5 | 40 | 18 (45) | OS | P=0.27 | HR 0.29 (95% CI 0.04–1.35), P=0.12 | All checklist items were fulfilled |
Abbreviations: CI=confidence interval; DFS=disease-free survival; DSS=disease-specific survival; HR=hazard ratio; HDR BT=high dose rate brachytherapy; NA=not available; ND=neck dissection; OS=overall survival; RFS=relapse-free survival; S=surgery.
a
HR in Mineta et al study has been calculated by contrasting VEGF negative vs VEGF positive, and we have converted it (as 1 divided by the reported HR and 1 divided by the reported CI) to be similar to all other studies in which HR was calculated by contrasting VEGF positive vs VEGF negative.