Polymorphism of vascular endothelial growth factor –2578C/A with cancer risk: evidence from 11263 subjects

Published data on the association between vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) –2578C/A polymorphism and cancer risk is inconclusive. To derive a more precise estimation of association between VEGF –2578C/A polymorphism and the risk of cancer, we performed a meta-analysis of 5415 cancer cases and 5848 controls from 16 published case–control studies. We used odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to assess the strength of the association. Our meta-analysis indicated that VEGF –2578C/A polymorphism was associated with the risk of colorectal cancer under homozygote comparison (OR = 0.70, 95% CI = 0.53–0.92), dominant model (OR = 0.72, 95% CI = 0.57–0.92), and recessive model (OR = 0.82, 95% CI = 0.67–1.01), although no evidence of association between VEGF –2578C/A polymorphism and cancer risk was observed as we compared in the pooled analyses (homozygote comparison: OR = 0.97, 95% CI = 0.81–1.16). More studies are needed to detect VEGF –2578C/A polymorphism and its association with cancer in different ethnic populations incorporated with environmental exposures in the susceptibility of different kinds of cancer.