Abstract
Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a potent regulator of angiogenesis and thereby involved in the development and progression of solid tumours. Associations between three VEGF gene polymorphisms (-634 G/C, +936 C/T, and +1612 G/A) and breast cancer risk have been extensively studied, but the currently available results are inconclusive. Our aim was to investigate associations between three VEGF gene polymorphisms and breast cancer risk in Chinese Han patients. We performed a hospital-based case-control study including 680 female incident breast cancer patients and 680 female age-matched healthy control subjects. Polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) analysis was performed to detect the three VEGF gene polymorphisms. We observed that women carriers of +936 TT genotypes [odds ratio (OR) =0.46, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.28, 0.76; P=0.002] or 936 T-allele (OR=0.81, 95% CI= 0.68, 0.98; P=0.03) had a protective effect concerning the disease. Our study suggested that the +1612G/A polymorphism was unlikely to be associated with breast cancer risk. The -634CC genotype was significantly associated with high tumor aggressiveness [large tumor size (OR=2.63, 95% CI=1.15, 6.02; P=0.02) and high histologic grade (OR=1.47, 95% CI= 1.06, 2.03; P=0.02)]. The genotypes were not related with other tumor characteristics such as regional or distant metastasis, stage at diagnosis, or estrogen or progesterone receptor status. Our study revealed that the VEGF -634 G/C and +936 C/T gene polymorphisms may be associated with breast cancer in Chinese Han patients.
Highlights
Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer death among females, accounting for 23% of the total cancer cases and 14% of the cancer deaths (Jemal et al, 2011)
We observed that women carriers of +936 TT genotypes [odds ratio (OR) =0.46, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.28, 0.76; P=0.002] or 936 T-allele (OR=0.81, 95% CI= 0.68, 0.98; P=0.03) had a protective effect concerning the disease
Our study suggested that the +1612G/A polymorphism was unlikely to be associated with breast cancer risk
Summary
Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer death among females, accounting for 23% of the total cancer cases and 14% of the cancer deaths (Jemal et al, 2011). Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among females in economically developing countries, a shift from the previous decade during which the most common cause of cancer death was cervical cancer (Jemal et al, 2011; Wang et al, 2013). Breast cancer may result from multiple environmental, dietary, hereditary, racial and socioeconomic risk factors (Ronco et al, 2012a; Ronco et al, 2012b; Zhang et al, 2012; Zhou et al, 2012a; Zhou et al, 2012b; Shamsi et al, 2013; Sun et al, 2013). The associations between three VEGF gene polymorphisms (-634 G/C, +936 C/T, and +1612 G/A) and breast cancer risk have been extensively studied, and the. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between three VEGF gene polymorphisms and breast cancer risk in Chinese Han patients
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