Vascular endothelial growth factor -2578C/A polymorphism and colorectal cancer risk: A meta-analysis

Background: the effects of the vascular endothelial growth factor (vegf) gene -2578c/a polymorphism on colorectal cancer (crc) risk have been investigated in some studies; however,the results of these studies were conflicting and ambiguous. therefore,we aimed to do a meta-analysis to investigate the association of vegf -2578c/a polymorphisms with crc risk from all eligible case-control studies published to date. materials and methods: an electronic search of the pubmed,embase and medline was performed. retrieve terms were utilized as following: (“vegf a” [mesh terms]) and (“polymorphism,genetic” [mesh terms]) and (“colorectal neoplasms” [mesh terms]). the association between vegf -2578c/a polymorphisms with crc risk was calculated with odds ratios (ors) and their corresponding 95% of confidence intervals (cis),and stratified analysis was also conducted with respect to ethnicity. results: a comprehensive meta-analysis of eight studies,including 2312 cases and 2308 controls was performed in this work. combined analysis revealed that a significant association between the vegf -2578c/a polymorphism with crc risk was identified in three comparison models including c allele versus a allele (or = 0.85,95% ci 0.75-0.97,p = 0.02),aa versus ca + cc (or = 1.28,95% ci 1.09-1.51,p = 0.003),and aa versus cc (or = 0.77,95% ci 0.64-0.93,p = 0.006). moreover,a similar result was obtained in the subgroup analysis that comparison models of c allele versus. a allele (or = 0.85,95% ci 0.76-0.95,p = 0.004),aa versus ca + cc (or = 1.31,95% ci 1.09-1.57,p = 0.004),and aa versus cc (or = 0.73,95% ci 0.59-0.90,p = 0.004) was confirmed to be associated with crc risk in caucasian. conclusion: it has been proved that the c allele versus a allele,aa versus ca + cc,and aa versus cc comparison models of vegf -2578c/a polymorphism might be risk factors for crc,but further studies with larger sample sizes are required to make a better assessment of above association. © 2015 journal of research in medical sciences.