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Prognostic significance of vascular endothelial growth factor expression in gastric carcinoma: a meta-analysis

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to comprehensively and quantitatively summarize available evidences for the use of VEGF protein to evaluate the clinicopathological and prognostic role of VEGF expression in Asian patients with gastric cancer.

Method

Searches were applied to MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library databases until June 2010, without language restrictions. A meta-analysis was performed to clarify the impact of VEGF expression on clinicopathological parameters or over survival (OS) in gastric cancer.

Results

Our combined results showed that VEGF expression in Asian patients with gastric cancer was significantly higher in the case–control studies (1,194 patients and 1,618 controls) (odds ratio [OR] = 112.41, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 64.12–197.06). All the analyses estimated favored a stronger link between the high VEGF expression and the poor 5-year overall survival (1,236 patients) (risk ratio [RR] = 2.45, 95% CI = 2.11–2.83, P = 0.000). When stratifying the studies by the pathological variables, the depth of invasion (3,094 patients) (OR = 1.95, 95% CI = 1.40–2.71, P = 0.000), lymph node metastasis (3,240 patients) (OR = 1.82, 95% CI = 1.29–2.57, P = 0.001), distant metastasis (1,980 patients) (OR = 2.76, 95% CI = 1.22–6.25, P = 0.015), vascular invasion (1,803 patients) (OR = 2.61, 95% CI = 2.09–3.27, P = 0.000), and TNM stage (1,819 patients) (OR = 1.92, 95% CI = 1.57–2.36, P = 0.000) provided significant prognostic information.

Conclusion

Our results indicate that VEGF can potently predict the overall survival in Asian patients with gastric cancer. Importantly, VEGF may be converted from candidate to the routine clinical setting for clinicians to predict the outcome of single patient with gastric carcinoma.

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Abbreviations

VEGF:

Vascular endothelial growth factor

RR:

Risk ratio

OR:

Odds ratio

OS:

Overall survival

VEGFR2:

Vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (78210021), the Chenguang Program from Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (10CG25), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81101683).

Conflict of interest

The authors have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Institute of Biomedical Sciences and School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, 500 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai, 200241, China

    Jing Chen, Yuanyuan Wu, Lijun He, Li Zhang, Tieliu Shi, Zhengfang Yi, Mingyao Liu & Xiufeng Pang

  2. Department of Medical Genetic and Cell Biology, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan, 750004, China

    Jing Chen

  3. Department of Molecular and Cellular Medicine, Institute of Biosciences and Technology, Texas A&M University Health Science Center, Houston, TX, 77030, USA

    Mingyao Liu

  4. The Affiliated Hospital of Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan, 750004, China

    Tao Li

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  1. Jing Chen
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Correspondence to Xiufeng Pang.

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Chen, J., Li, T., Wu, Y. et al. Prognostic significance of vascular endothelial growth factor expression in gastric carcinoma: a meta-analysis. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 137, 1799–1812 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-011-1057-2

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