Treatment effect and influence on the level of angiogenesis-associated factors in acute leukemia treated by Thalidomide

OBJECTIVE: To observe on the clinical effect and the influence of the level of plasma vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR) and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) in acute leukemia before and after treatment by thalidomide combined with chemotherapy. METHODS: Thirty‐six cases of acute leukemia patients were randomly divided into experimental group and control group by 18 cases each. Each group was treated with conventional chemotherapy in the standard‐dose, meanwhile in the experimental group additional thalidomide 100 mg/day were taken orally. Before treatment and 8 weeks after treatment, plasma were collected for the detection of VEGF, VEGFR and bFGF content by double antibody sandwich enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). RESULTS: The ratio of experimental group and control group, were 88.9 % (16/18), 77.8 % (14/18) respectively and the difference was statistically significant (chi2 =4.103, P <0.05). The level of plasma VEGF (389.78+249.94 pg/ml, 318.54+125.78 pg/ml) of experimental group and control group before treatment was statistically significant (t = 3.141, t =3.024, P <0.01) compared with healthy group [(132.91+26.66) pg/ml] respectively. The level of plasma VEGF of those groups after treatment [(211.74+36.72) pg/ml, (288.02+31.77) pg/ml] was statistically significant (t =2.413, t =2.324, P <0.05) compared with healthy group respectively. The difference of the level of plasma VEGF of experimental group and control group before treatment was not statistically significant (t =1.384, P >0.05). The difference of the level of plasma VEGF of experimental group and control group after treatment was statistically significant(t =2.793,P <0.05). The level of plasma VEGFR [(2490.75+1695.9) pg/ml, (2322.78+1105.87) pg/ml] of experimental group and control group before treatment was statistically significant (t =2.914, t =2.783, P<0.01) compared with healthy group [(1134.98+378.45) pg/ml] respectively. The level of plasma VEGFR of those groups after treatment [(1359.71+390.24) pg/ml, (1753.89+337.04) pg/ml] was statistically significant(t=2.572, t=2.447,P <0.05) compared with healthy group respectively. The difference of the level of plasma VEGFR of experimental group and control group before treatment was not statistically significant (t =1.276, P >0.05). The difference of the level of plasma VEGFR of experimental group and control group after treatment was statistically significant (t =2.486, P <0.05). The level of plasma bFGF [(2.43+0.27) ng/ml, (2.41 +0.33) ng/ml] of experimental group and control group before treatment was statistically significant(t =4.982, t =4.171, P <0.05) compared with healthy group (1.83 +0.44) ng/ml respectively; the level of plasma bFGF of those groups after treatment [(2.09 +0.17) ng/ml, (2.11 +0.31) ng/ml] was statistically significant (t =3.011, t =2.773, P <0.05) compared with healthy group respectively. The difference of the level of plasma bFGF of experimental group and control group before treatment was not statistically significant (t =0.953, P >0.05). The difference of the level of plasma bFGF of experimental group and control group after treatment was not statistically significant (t =1.282, P >0.05). CONCLUSION: The remission rate could be improved by thalidomide combined with chemotherapy in acute leukemia, which could be an effective treatment by anti‐angiogenesis and inhibiting the growth and infiltration of acute leukemia cells.