Determination of the density of neovascularization in invasive front in skin squamous cell carcinoma, with varying degrees of histological differentiation

Abstract

Introduction: Angiogenesis is a process of formation of new blood vessels from the existing normal capillaries. Tumors with higher angiogenesis activity belong to the category of very aggressive tumors. Aim of this paper is determination of the density of the blood vessels, i.e. neovascularization in the invasive front of the tumor stroma in skin squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in relation to the healthy skin and the ratio of the density of the blood vessels in the skin SCC with a different degree of histological differentiation. Methods: The material is consisted of operational materials from 30 patients with skin SCC. Neoplasms were classified according to the degree of histological differentiation (G). Histological sections of the invasive front of the neoplasms, the tumor tissue and the surrounding healthy skin were stained immunohistochemically using specific primary monoclonal antibodies SMA and CD34 and analyzed by light microscopy. The density of the blood vessels in the skin SCC in relation to the dermis of the healthy skin was determined, and the density of the blood vessels in neoplasms in relation to the degree of histological differentiation(G). Results: The histological analysis has shown high statistical difference in the density of the blood vessels in the invasive front of skin SCC compared to the healthy skin (Mann-Whitney U, p=0.0000001). The difference found in the density of neovascularization in the neoplasms with different degree of differentiation (G1, G2, G3) is statistically significant for (Kruskal-Wallis, p=0.0003). Conclusion: The density of the neovascularization changes considerably compared to the healthy skin. Depending on the degree of histological differentiation of the neoplasms, the found differences in the density of the blood vessels are statistically significant and there is positive correlation between them. The increase of vascularity in the invasive front of the neoplasm in a higher grade cancers suggest about its possible role in the progression of neoplasm.