CD147 and VEGF Co-expression Predicts Prognosis in Patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Objective To investigate the possible role of CD147 and vascular endothelial growth factor in progression and prognosis of acute myeloid leukemia. Methods Immunohistochemical staining was performed to detect the expression of CD147 and vascular endothelial growth factor in paraffin-embedded sections from 62 bone marrow biopsies obtained from an equal number of patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia. Results CD147 and vascular endothelial growth factor expression in the bone marrow of acute myeloid leukemia patients were significantly higher than those in normal controls (both P < 0.001). Expression of them was significantly increased in patients with a high degree of microvessel density compared with those with a low degree (CD147: P = 0.009; vascular endothelial growth factor: P = 0.01) and correlated well with bone marrow microvessel density (CD147: P = 0.01; vascular endothelial growth factor: P = 0.02). In addition, higher levels of CD147 and vascular endothelial growth factor were also found in acute myeloid leukemia patients with an unfavorable karyotype compared with those with intermediate and favorable karyotypes (both P = 0.01). Moreover, the expression of CD147 was significantly correlated with that of vascular endothelial growth factor (P < 0.001). Furthermore, the co-expression of CD147 and vascular endothelial growth factor in the bone marrow indicated a poor prognosis in acute myeloid leukemia and was an independent prognostic factor for overall survival by multivariate analysis. Conclusions Our data show for the first time that the co-expression of CD147 and vascular endothelial growth factor may indicate a poor prognosis in acute myeloid leukemia and may be a highly sensitive marker for predicting the clinical outcome of patients.