By studying the density of blood vessels resulting from
evaluation (Nico et al. 2008). Nico in particular describes the issue of micro vessel or microvascular density as being the gold standard with respect to the morphological assessment of angiogenesis in
In addition to describing the physiological mechanisms, It is also possible to make generalizations concerning high levels of angiogenesis and specific types of carcinomas, specifically cancers of the prostate or the breasts – characterized by high levels of micro vessel formation. Considerable research has been devoted to the characterization of breast cancer, with confirmation of the importance and predictive power of angiogenesis in the tumorigenesis process. There is considerable support for the utility of micro vessel density analysis as a predictive methodology for these tumors, with historic evidence that angiogenesis precedes the malignant transformation of mammary cells into fully cancerous carcinomas arising from relatively benign papillomas.
(Srivastava et al. 1988). There is little doubt that higher rates of angiogenesis do indeed correlate with the emergence of certain tumors, but at present the connection may not be absolute: breast cancer
studies indicate that lesions with the highest amount of micro vessel density do carry the greatest risk of breast cancer, but it is not entirely certain whether there is an absolute threshold of density
that transfection of cancerous tissue with factors antagonistic to angiogenesis decrease the probability of further growth and malignancy (Miller & Sledge, 2003). This is compelling evidence describing
particular mutation of a particular oncogene. As cells continuously grow and divide in the millions over many years, each replication event creates a probability that the right (or wrong) mutation will
occur in cells that already carry some growth irregularities.