It is well recognized that peritumoral edema is vasogenic cerebral edema in malignant glioma, and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) induced by phosphorylated signal transducer and activator of transcription factor 3 (pSTAT3) strongly contributes to tumor angiogenesis in glioblastoma. However, there is no study with regard to the correlation between pSTAT3 or VEGF and peritumoral edema. Such evidence may contribute to providing new targets for the management of peritumoral cerebral. In this study, newly diagnosed glioblastoma tissues from 84 patients were collected to investigate pSTAT3 and VEGF expression by immunohistochemistry, and peritumoral edema was detected by preoperative magnetic resonance imaging. We found that a significantly positive correlation emerged between VEGF and pSTAT3 expression (P = 0.000) in glioblastoma tissues, but they were not related to patient gender and age (P > 0.05); the expression of pSTAT3 and VEGF were associated with peritumoral edema extent (P = 0.005), but not with edema shape (P > 0.05). Therefore, the pSTAT3-VEGF signaling pathway, which is correlated with peritumoral edema extent, might be a regulatory mechanism in the course of peritumoral edema formation during glioblastoma tumorigenesis and progression, thereby suggesting that STAT3 inhibition might be helpful for alleviation of peritumoral cerebral edema.
Keywords: Glioblastoma; peritumoral edema; phosphorylation; signal transducer and activator of transcription factor 3; vascular endothelial growth factor.