Vascular normalization

Vascular normalization refers to the therapeutic restoration of the abnormal blood vessels found in disorders such as cancer to a more structurally and functionally normal state. In tumors, blood vessels are typically disorganized, leaky, and poorly perfused, which hinders the delivery and effectiveness of chemotherapeutics and immune cells. Strategies that normalize vasculature—primarily by inhibiting excess VEGF signaling—improve vessel maturity, decrease permeability, and enhance perfusion. This can increase drug delivery, reduce hypoxia, and improve response to chemo- or immunotherapies. Vascular normalization is a process, not a molecular target, and as such is not a direct target for drugs, but is the desired outcome of therapeutics acting chiefly on pro-angiogenic pathways like VEGF/VEGFR[1][2][3][4][6][7][9].

Other names

Vessel normalizationTumor vascular normalization

Inhibition of pro-angiogenic signaling (most notably VEGF/VEGFR pathway), leading to normalization of vasculature and improved perfusion[2][4][9]