Association between vascular endothelial growth factor +936C/T polymorphism and breast cancer risk: a meta-analysis of 18 case-control studies.

Important in angiogenesis, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) acts as a biomarker in the growth of and prognosis for breast cancer. Evidence suggests that single nucleotide polymorphisms of VEGF such as +936C/T (rs3025039) effects VEGF levels; however, current studies on the association between +936C/T and breast cancer risk are inconsistent. This meta-analysis was conducted to reach a more precise conclusion about this association. PubMed was searched for case-control studies on the association between +936C/T levels and breast cancer risk. The quality of each study was scoring in term of some important criteria. Pooled odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to assess the strength of this association. Subgroup analysis stratified by ethnicity and quality score was also conducted. Eighteen studies with 10,694 cases and 11,199 controls in accord with the selection criteria were included in our meta-analysis. When all eligible studies were pooled, our meta-analysis showed that there was no significant association between +936C/T and breast cancer risk in the all ethnic group; however, in the subgroup analysis, we found that +936C/T was associated with reduced breast cancer risk in the Asian population. When stratified by the quality score, no significant association was found between +936C/T and breast cancer risk either in studies scored <8 or studies scored >7. Our findings suggested that +936C/T is not associated with breast cancer risk but may reduce the risk in the Asian population.