The aim of the present study is to clarify the critical roles of vasohibin in cervical
carcinomas. We investigated the expression ratios of vasohibin and
vascular endothelial growth factor (
VEGF) receptor-2 on endothelium and microvessel density, lymphatic vessel density (LVD) by immunohistochemistry. Sixty-one
squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), 18
mucinous adenocarcinoma (
Adenocarcinoma), 38
carcinoma in situ (CIS), and 35 normal cervical epithelium were collected. We investigated the expression of vasohibin and compared it with the expression of
VEGF receptor-2 (VEGFR-2, KDR/flk-1), and CD34 in the stromal endothelium. Expression of
VEGF was counted using the histological score (H score). D2-40 was used as a marker for lymphatic endothelial cells to investigate LVD. The microvessel density of the normal cervical epithelium was significantly lower than that of CIS, SCC, and
Adenocarcinoma (P < 0.05). The expression ratio of vasohibin in the normal cervical epithelium was significantly lower than that of SCC and
Adenocarcinoma (P < 0.05). The expression ratio of
VEGFR-2 of the normal cervical epithelium was significantly lower than that of SCC and
Adenocarcinoma (P < 0.05). The LVD of the normal cervical epithelium was significantly lower than that of CIS, SCC, and
Adenocarcinoma (P < 0.05). For normal cervical epithelium, CIS, and SCC, there was a moderate correlation between the expression percentage of vasohibin and the expression percentage of
VEGFR-2 (P < 0.05, r(2) = 0.3018). This is the first study to elucidate the correlation between the expression of vasohibin in the stromal endothelial cells and the expression of
VEGFR-2 in human cervical
carcinomas.