title: A systematic review of vascular endothelial growth factor expression as a biomarker of prognosis in patients with osteosarcoma.
abstract: Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) plays an important role in the tumor angiogenesis, and its expression has been supposed to be a biomarker of prognosis in patients with osteosarcoma. There are many studies assessing the prognostic role of VEGF expression in osteosarcoma, and no consistent outcomes are reported. To provide a comprehensive assessment of the prognostic role of VEGF expression, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of published studies. We assessed the effect of VEGF expression on the overall survival rate and the disease-free survival rate by calculating the pooled odds ratio (OR) with corresponding 95 % confidence interval (95 %CI). Finally, 12 studies with a total of 559 osteosarcoma patients were included into the systematic review and meta-analysis. Compared with osteosarcoma patients with low or negative VEGF expression, patients with high VEGF expression were obviously associated with lower disease-free survival (OR=0.25, 95 %CI 0.11-0.58, P=0.001, I (2) =56.4 %). In addition, patients with high VEGF expression were obviously associated with lower overall survival (OR=0.22, 95 %CI 0.13-0.35, P<0.001, I (2) =0.0 %). Therefore, the findings from this systematic review suggest that VEGF expression is an effective biomarker of prognosis in patients with osteosarcoma.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics Surgery, Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, 139 Renmin Road, Changsha, Hunan 410011, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Ding
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Ye-Jia
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Ke-wei
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Wan-Chun
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000378:metabolism*; D001859:Bone Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000378:metabolism / Q000401:mortality*; D006801:Humans; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D012516:Osteosarcoma / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000378:metabolism / Q000401:mortality*; D011379:Prognosis; D015996:Survival Rate; D042461:Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; C467484:VEGFA protein, human; D042461:Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A