title: Vascular endothelial growth factor polymorphisms in gastric cancer development, prognosis, and survival.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Angiogenesis plays an important role in growth, progression, and metastasis of tumors. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) overexpression has been associated with advanced stage and poor survival in several cancers.
  
  
  METHODS
  The association of functional single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of VEGF gene with gastric cancer development, prognosis, and survival in a case-control study of 100 gastric cancer Greek patients was evaluated. The genotyping was performed by PCR-RFLP analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Our results revealed a marginally significant association of the 634CC genotype (P = 0.042) with increased risk for gastric cancer development. None of the rest of the examined polymorphisms or haplotypes conferred any gastric cancer susceptibility. A strong association between the -2578AA (P = 0.025), -634CC (P = 0.013), +936CT (P = 0.028), +936TT (P = 0.0001) genotypes and a larger tumor size was observed, while the 2578AA and -634CC genotypes were strongly correlated to poor differentiation (P = 0.01) and advanced stage of disease (P = 0.039), respectively. In addition, our results indicated that metastatic disease frequency was more accentuated among the +936TT carriers (P = 0.0035). Interestingly, carrying the -634CC genotype was associated with decreased overall survival rates (46.67%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The present study suggests that VEGF polymorphisms may contribute to gastric tumor characteristics; these observations, however, requiring further confirmation in a larger multi-ethnic study.
authors.affiliation: 4th Surgical Department, Attikon Hospital, University of Athens, Athens, Greece.
authors.forename: Nikolaos
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tzanakis
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gazouli
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rallis
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Giannopoulos
authors.forename: Ioannis
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Papaconstantinou
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Theodoropoulos
authors.forename: Emmanouil
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pikoulis
authors.forename: Christos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tsigris
authors.forename: Petros
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Karakitsos
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Peros
authors.forename: Nikolaos
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Nikiteas
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D018450:Disease Progression; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008198:Lymph Nodes / Q000473:pathology*; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009389:Neovascularization, Pathologic / Q000473:pathology; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D011379:Prognosis; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000098:blood supply / Q000209:etiology / Q000235:genetics* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D015996:Survival Rate; D042461:Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: C467484:VEGFA protein, human; D042461:Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A