It is well recognized that peritumoral
edema is
vasogenic cerebral edema in
malignant glioma, and
vascular endothelial growth factor (
VEGF) induced by phosphorylated signal transducer and activator of
transcription factor 3 (pSTAT3) strongly contributes to
tumor angiogenesis in
glioblastoma. However, there is no study with regard to the correlation between pSTAT3 or
VEGF and peritumoral
edema. Such evidence may contribute to providing new targets for the management of peritumoral cerebral. In this study, newly diagnosed
glioblastoma tissues from 84 patients were collected to investigate pSTAT3 and
VEGF expression by immunohistochemistry, and peritumoral
edema was detected by preoperative magnetic resonance imaging. We found that a significantly positive correlation emerged between
VEGF and pSTAT3 expression (P = 0.000) in
glioblastoma tissues, but they were not related to patient gender and age (P > 0.05); the expression of pSTAT3 and
VEGF were associated with peritumoral
edema extent (P = 0.005), but not with
edema shape (P > 0.05). Therefore, the pSTAT3-VEGF signaling pathway, which is correlated with peritumoral
edema extent, might be a regulatory mechanism in the course of peritumoral
edema formation during
glioblastoma tumorigenesis and progression, thereby suggesting that STAT3 inhibition might be helpful for alleviation of peritumoral
cerebral edema.