Impact of oxygenation status and patient age on DNA content in cancers of the uterine cervix.

Purpose: In carcinomas of the uterine cervix, the tumor oxygenation status has been shown to be a prognostic indicator that is independent of treatment modality. In vitro studies suggest gene amplification and polyploidization to be among the major consequences of hypoxia (with or without consecutive reoxygenation) and to be associated with treatment resistance and tumor progression. This study analyzed whether hypoxia alters net DNA content in uterine cervix cancer cells to the extent that it is identifiable by DNA image cytometry.

Association between host tissue vascularity and the prognostically relevant tumor vascularity in human cervical cancer.

For many human solid tumors including carcinoma of the uterine cervix it has been shown that vascularity is linked to the malignant potential of the neoplasm. However, tumor microvessel density might not just represent the angiogenic potential of the neoplastic cells but could also be influenced by the primary vascularization of the host tissue. Vascular densities were assessed by systematic random sampling of normal cervical stroma and of cervical cancer tissue in surgical specimens of 52 consecutive patients.

Hypoxia-stimulated expression of angiogenic growth factors in cervical cancer cells and cervical cancer-derived fibroblasts.

It is generally accepted that local growth of solid tumors and their ability to establish distant metastases are dependent on the formation of new blood vessels arising from preexisting ones (angiogenesis). The angiogenic response of the host is mediated by angiogenic molecules that are released from cancer and normal stroma cells, especially fibroblasts. The goal of the present study was to quantitatively compare the expression of the two most important angiogenic growth factors (VEGF, angiogenin) of cervical cancer cells (HeLa and Me-180) with that of cervical cancer-derived fibroblasts (from one tumor/patient) under defined normoxic and hypoxic conditions in vitro.

[Angiogenesis in cervical cancer].

Angiogenesis is a factor of spread and metastatization. This fact has been established for many malignancies, but the data concerning cervical cancer are rather conflicting. In a study including 42 patients affected by cervical cancer stages IB to IVA, the authors assess the mean capillary density and the correlations between this parameter and the other anatomoclinical parameters: the VEGF expression, tumoral oxygenation and the data obtained from dynamic MRI.

Hypoxic cervical cancers with low apoptotic index are highly aggressive.

There is evidence from experimental work that hypoxia induces apoptosis in apoptosis-sensitive neoplastic cells and that this apoptotic sensitivity is lost during malignant progression. Oxygenation profiles and apoptotic indices in human squamous cell cancer of the uterine cervix have been determined, and a subgroup of tumors has been identified with low apoptotic index despite pronounced hypoxia representing carcinomas that consist of neoplastic cells with diminished apoptotic potential. These hypoxic low-apoptotic tumors show a high probability for lymphatic spread and for recurrence despite adjuvant treatment with radiation or chemotherapy in addition to radical surgery.