Figure 2 Immunohistochemical staining of VEGF-C in the gastric carcinoma: the positive expression of VEGF-C protein was stained as yellow or brownish yellow #LCZ696 manufacturer randurls[1|1|,|CHEM1|]# in the cytoplasm of carcinoma cells (LsAB, ×400). Immunoreactivity of D2-40 proteins was found in the cytoplasm and cellular membrane of lymphatic endothelial cells. The distribution of D2-40-positive cells was frequently located in peritumoral tissue (hot spot) (Figure 3A). The means of LVD in peritumoral, intratumoral and normal tissue of

the 56 gastric carcinomas were 9.24 ± 4.51, 2.88 ± 2.04, 2.69 ± 1.78, respectively. The LVD in peritumoral, intratumoral (Figure 3B) and normal tissue (Figure 3C) was significantly different by variance analysis of randomized block design. When compared to each other by least significant difference (LSD) test, there was a significant difference between the peritumoral LVD and both the intratumoural LVD and the LVD of normal tissue. There was no significant difference between the intratumoral LVD and the LVD of normal tissue. When the mean

peritumoral LVD of 9.24 was chosen as the cut-off point for discrimination of MK5108 purchase the 56 patients, 32 patients were categorized in the low LVD group and 24 in the high LVD group. Figure 3 Immunohistochemical staining of D2-40: Immunoreactivity of D2-40 proteins was found in the cytoplasm and cellular membrane of lymphatic endothelial cells. A. Detection of lymphatic vessels in the peritumoral tissue of gastric carcinoma was highlighted by immunostaining against D2-40 (LsAB,×200). B. Immunohistochemical staining of D2-40 in the intratumoral tissue of gastric carcinoma (LsAB, ×200). C. Immunohistochemical staining

of D2-40 the normal gastric mucosal tissue (LsAB, ×200). Correlation between COX-2, VEGF-C and LVD and clinicopathologic characteristics The correlation of COX-2, VEGF-C and peritumoral LVD with clinicopathologic factors in gastric carcinoma is shown in Table 1. There was no significant correlation between COX-2 expression and any clinicopathologic characteristics, including gender, age, lymph node metastasis, histological differentiation, invasion depth and TNM stage (P > 0.05, chi-square test). Similarly, Dynein VEGF-C expression was not correlated with any clinicopathologic characteristics (P > 0.05, chi-square test). The peritumoral LVD was significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis and invasion depth. It was higher in the lymph node metastasis group (10.37 ± 4.61) than in the no lymph node metastasis group (6.64 ± 3.01) (P = 0.003, t-test) and was higher in the T3,T4 group (10.80 ± 5.24) than in the T1,T2 group (8.37 ± 3.85) (P = 0.05, t-test). No significant correlation was observed with the rest of the clinicopathologic parameters (P > 0.05, t-test).