Immunohistological parathormone production changes and angiogenesis in normal and adenomatous human parathyroid glands.

INTRODUCTION

Parathyroid tumor function is not always positively correlated with tumor size, complicating the disease picture. Here, we compared parathormone (PTH) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-A expression intensities in normal and adenomatous parathyroid glands, as well as the number of vessels, as determined by CD31 expression.

METHODS

Eight adenomatous and six normal samples were compared for the expression intensities of PTH and VEGF-A, expression granule area of VEGF-A per unit area (/900 μm2), and number of blood vessels. We then examined relationships between the expression intensities of PTH and VEGF-A and the number of blood vessels.

RESULTS

The mean (SD) expression intensities of PTH and VEGF-A were 179.7 (27.5) and 100.6 (13.9) bits, respectively, in the normal group-significantly higher than the 99.0 (37.6) and 73.5 (19.5) bits in the adenoma group (p<0.01). The mean (SD) expression granule area of VEGF-A was 86.0 (41.2) μm2/900 μm2 in the normal group-significantly higher than the 13.7 (11.5) μm2 in the adenoma group (p<0.001). The mean (SD) number of blood vessels by CD31 expression was 26.0 (6.9) in the normal group-significantly higher than the 13.9 (8.7) in the adenoma group (p<0.05). The mean expression intensity of PTH was positively correlated with the number of blood vessels in the adenoma group (R=0.802, p<0.05).

CONCLUSION

Normal parathyroid tissue exhibits significantly higher expression levels of PTH and VEGF-A, along with more blood vessels per unit area, compared with adenomatous tissue.