Vascular endothelial growth factor in node-positive breast cancer patients treated with adjuvant tamoxifen

In 212 postmenopausal women with node-positive oestrogen receptor-positive (ERLBA) breast cancer subjected to radical surgery and adjuvant tamoxifen, the risk of 6-year relapse increased with increasing values of intratumoral vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in patients whose tumours had a low/intermediate ERLBA content compared to patients with high-ERLBA tumours. These findings indicate that tumour progression, activated or sustained by high VEGF levels, may be counteracted in high-ERLBA cancers by tamoxifen, which in contrast fails to contrast the metastatic potential in low-ERLBA tumours.