Strongly Enhanced Serum Levels of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) after Poly-trauma and Burn
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Sibylle Grad
Abstract
Angiogenesis is a key component of the repair mechanisms triggered by tissue injury. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is an important mediator of angiogenesis, as it acts directly and specifically on endothelial cells. VEGF produced locally in regenerating tissue may spill over into the systemic circulation, and measuring levels of circulating VEGF may allow monitoring of angiogenesis. To determine whether circulating VEGF is increased after severe injury, we measured concentrations of VEGF in serial serum samples of 23 mechanical burn patients, 55 patients with multiple trauma and 56 healthy normal controls, using a newly established ELISA assay. In burn patients, serum VEGF was increased on day 1 (369.4 ± 88.0 pg/ml) and on day 3 (452.0 ± 65.3 pg/ml), reached highest levels on day 14 (1809.5 ± 239.7 pg/ml) and was still elevated on day 21 post-burn (1339.8 ± 208.7 pg/ml) (mean ± SEM, p<0.01), when compared with healthy controls (82.2 ± 10.8 pg/ml (mean ± SEM)). Likewise, in trauma patients, serum VEGF showed a trend towards elevated values on the day of admission (186.9 ± 43.9 pg/ml) and on day 3 after injury (193.2 ± 62.1 pg/ml). Thereafter, serum VEGF increased further (day 7, 507.0 ± 114.7 pg/ml), peaked on day 14 (742.4 ± 151.8 pg/ml) and was still elevated on day 21 after injury (693.1 ± 218.6 pg/ml (mean ± SEM, p<0.01)). No significant correlation was observed between peak serum VEGF and initial severity of mechanical (Injury Severity Score) or burn injury (percentage of body surface burned). However, in both burn and trauma patients, the subgroup of patients with uncomplicated healing showed significantly higher increases of serum VEGF than the subgroup who developed severe complications during the post-traumatic course, such as sepsis, adult respiratory distress syndrome or multiple organ failure (p<0.05). Thus, markedly enhanced levels of serum VEGF are present one to three weeks after trauma or burn injury. Further, occurrence of severe complications during the post-traumatic period is associated with lesser increases of serum VEGF.
Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG
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Articles in the same Issue
- New Trends in Immunoassay Methodology
- Progress in Immunoassay Technology
- Standardization of Steroid Immunoassays – In Theory an Easy Task
- Thermodynamic Parameters in Immunoassay
- Engineering of an Anti-Steroid Antibody: Amino Acid Substitutions Change Antibody Fine Specificity from Cortisol Estradiol
- Antigenic Definition of Cardiac Troponin I
- Peptide Models of Immunological Recognition: Paratope Dissection by Multiple Peptide Synthesis
- Remodeling of Glycoprotein and Carbohydrate Antigens
- Strongly Enhanced Serum Levels of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) after Poly-trauma and Burn
- Rapid Electrophoretic Separation of Pre-ß-Migrating High Density Lipoproteins Using Automated PhastSystem(tm): Application to Analysis of Lecitihin: Cholesterol Acyltransferase-Deficient Plasma
- Decrease in High Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (HDL-C) Levels Following Gemfibrozil Therapy
- Reference Intervals for Serum Cystatin C and Serum Creatinine in Adults
- Concepts for a Model of Good Medical Laboratory Services
- Diagnostic Kits Derived from Standard Method "DGKC 94" as a Potential Tool for Improvement of Analytical Standardization and Clinical Utility of Alkaline Phosphatase
- Antioxidant Interferences in Superoxide Dismutase Activity Methods Using Superoxide Radical as Substrate
- Cytokines and Soluble Adhesion Molecules in Laboratory Diagnostics. Report from a Meeting Held at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg on 25 November 1997
- IFCC-WorldLabNews
