The vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) gene rs2010963 and rs3025039 polymorphisms and risk of osteosarcoma in Chinese population: evidence from a case-control study and a meta-analysis

The gene encoding vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is recognized as promising candidate for the development of osteosarcoma. Two genetic polymorphisms (rs2010963 and rs3025039) in VEGF have been widely evaluated in association with osteosarcoma in Chinese population, and the results are often inconsistent. We therefore conducted a case-control study and a comprehensive meta-analysis to shed some light on this issue. Although our case-control association study failed to find the association between VEGF gene rs3025039 polymorphism with osteosarcoma occurrence, after a comprehensive meta-analysis over 3700 subjects, we provided evidence that VEGF rs3025039T allele was associated with a significantly increased risk (%) to osteosarcoma (95% confidence interval (95% CI) for odds ratio (OR) = 1.25, 95% CI: 1.12-1.39), in Chinese Han population. The tendency was similar to the homozygous comparison (OR = 1.66, 95% CI: 1.29-2.14), dominant model (OR = 1.22, 95% CI: 1.07-1.40), and recessive model (OR = 1.58, 95% CI: 1.24-2.02). As to rs2010963, this study along with the meta-analysis including 7 studies indicated that rs2010963G allele was associated with a significantly increased risk osteosarcoma occurrence in Chinese population, in the allelic comparison (OR = 1.25, 95% CI: 1.09-1.43) as well as the homozygous comparison (OR = 1.57, 95% CI: 1.21-2.04). We conclude that the VEGF gene rs2010963 and rs3025039 polymorphisms were associated with the risk for osteosarcoma in Chinese population.