Antiangiogenis vs. chemotherapy: Impact upon biomarkers in advanced hepatocellular cancer (HCC)

Introduction: We have shown, that octreotide can effectively inhibit systemic VEGF-A secretion (J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 2006) in HCC patients. In a HCC mouse model, PDGF-B was associated with cell proliferation. This study was therefore designed to evaluate the impact of different Tx on established (s-Eselectin, VEGF-A) and new biomarkers (PDGF-BB) for angiogenesis. It was hypothesised that 1) conventional chemotherapy would activate angiogenesis, 2) PDGF inhibition by imatinib would enhance the effect of octreotide, and 3) that metronomic chemotherapy added by antiangiogenesis (Hanahan D, JCO 2005) would inhibi…