Objective To study the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor(VEGF) in breast cancer and its clinical significance.Methods The expression of the protein was determined by immunohistochemistry in 60 cases of breast cancer and 20 cases of benign breast diseases.The relationship of VEGF expression with clinicopathological characteristics was statistically analyzed.Results Of all the 60 cases of breast cancers,49 cases showed positive VEGF expression,while only 4 cases expressed VEGF in the group of breast adenofibroma.There was significant difference between breast cancer and breast adenofibroma( P ＜ 0.05 ).The overexpression of VEGF was related with the tumor size ( P ＜ 0.05 ),histological grade ( P ＜ 0.05 ),lymph node state ( P ＜ 0.05 ) and TNM stage ( P ＜ 0.05 ),but was irrelevant to age,ER and PR( P ＞ 0.05).Conclusion VEGF might have important significance in the development,metastasis and prognosis of human breast cancer.It may be taken as an independent marker to predict the prognosis of breast cancer.