In this group of 178 patients, those with FIGO stage III/IV disease demonstrated significantly higher vessel density (P = 0.005), number of vessels (P = 0.004), median vessel size (P = 0.006) and VEGFR-2 expression (P = 0.003); consistent with the concept that angiogenesis is associated with tumour growth and metastasis (Additional File 2: Table S1). Here, KDR is linked to neoplasm.