Vascular endothelium growth factor in the sera of patients with adrenal tumors.

Serum levels of vascular endothelium growth factor were measured in 43 patients with adrenal tumors and 25 healthy subjects. The mean blood levels of the factor in patients with adrenal tumors significantly surpassed the control. No correlations between the level of vascular endothelium growth factor, patients age and sex were detected. The levels of this factor were maximum in patients with adrenocortical cancer, but its mean level differed negligibly from that in other morphological variants of tumors. The level of vascular endothelium growth factor tended to increase with increasing the stage of adrenocortical cancer. A direct correlation was revealed between the level of vascular endothelium growth factor and tumor size in adrenocortical cancer and aldosterone-producing adenoma. Presumably, vascular endothelium growth factor is involved into mechanisms of growth, invasion, and metastatic growth of adrenocortical cancer.