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Abstract Endometrial cancer (EC) is the most common malignancy of the female genital tract in the western world representing the fourth most common cancer in women. A variety of parameters such as performance status of the patient, tumor histological type and grade, have been proposed as prognostically useful factors but have only achieved limited clinical application. The lack of conclusive prognostic factors make it important to search for such new factors. The most recent tumor prognostic factor receiving great research interest is tumor angiogenesis which is critical for the growth and spread of tumors. Angiogenesis occurs physiologically in endometrium during the menstrual cycle. Many tumors have a recognizable pre-neoplastic or in situ phase where angiogenesis may precede neoplastic transformation. In endometrium, angiogenesis plays important roles in tumor growth. Also transition from endometrial hyperplasia to endometrial cancer appears to accompanied by change in microvessel count. Endometrial hyperplastic and endometrial cancer are frequently highly vascularised in which overexpression of HGF has been demonstrated both at the tissue and the serum levels. The present work studied the immunohistochemical expression of HGF and MVD in relation to each other and to other clinicopathological variables of prognostic significance. These variables included tumor-related factors as histological type and grade, and patients-related factor including age of the patients. The purpose of this study was to quantify vascular density in the normal, hyperplastic, and neoplastic endometria and to explore its relationship to HGF expression and to other prognostic features of endometrial carcinoma . |