BACKGROUND: Malignant gliomas are lethal cancers, highly dependent on 
angiogenesis and treatment options and prognosis still remain poor for patients 
with recurrent glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Ephs and ephrins have many 
well-defined functions during embryonic development of central nervous system 
such as axon mapping, neural crest cell migration, hindbrain segmentation and 
synapse formation as well as physiological and abnormal angiogenesis. 
Accumulating evidence indicates that Eph and ephrins are frequently 
overexpressed in different tumor types including GBM. However, their role in 
tumorigenesis remains controversial, as both tumor growth promoter and 
suppressor potential have been ascribed to Eph and ephrins while the function of 
EphA7 in GBM pathogenesis remains largely unknown.
METHODS: In this study, we investigated the immunohistochemical expression of 
EphA7 in a series of 32 primary and recurrent GBM and correlated it with 
clinical pathological parameters and patient outcome. In addition, intratumor 
microvascular density (MVD) was quantified by immunostaining for endothelial 
cell marker von Willebrand factor (vWF).
RESULTS: Overexpression of EphA7 protein was predictive of the adverse outcome 
in GBM patients, independent of MVD expression (p = 0.02). Moreover, high 
density of MVD as well as higher EphA7 expression predicted the disease outcome 
more accurately than EphA7 variable alone (p = 0.01). There was no correlation 
between MVD and overall survival or recurrence-free survival (p > 0.05). 
However, a statistically significant correlation between lower MVD and tumor 
recurrence was observed (p = 0.003).
CONCLUSION: The immunohistochemical assessment of tissue EphA7 provides 
important prognostic information in GBM and would justify its use as surrogate 
marker to screen patients for tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy.