Adipose angiogenesis

Abstract

Angiogenesis is a hallmark of cancer [1] and occurs in most human tumors. It has been shown that angiogenic tumors are more likely to develop metastasis and exhibit resistance to standard cancer therapies [2], making tumor angiogenesis a prognostic and sometimes predictive biomarker [3, 4]. Although new imaging technologies, such as dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) or positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) scans, are clinically available to visualize tumor angiogenesis in vivo [5, 6], histological assessment of tumor angiogenesis remains a technique of interest, as it can provide information on the capillary level of newly developed microvessels in different parts of the tumor [7]. Via histological examination, the relationship between tumor microvessels and other clinicopathological tumor characteristics can be evaluated as well [8].