Background: The present study analyzed vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) gene polymorphisms and their impact on the prognosis for patients with gastric cancer.
Patients and methods: Five hundred and three consecutive patients with surgically resected gastric adenocarcinoma were enrolled in the present study. The genomic DNA was extracted from paraffin-embedded tissue and four VEGF (-460T > C, -116G > A, +405G > C, and +936C > T) gene polymorphisms were determined using a polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism assay.
Results: The survival analysis showed no association of three VEGF gene polymorphisms with the prognosis. For the +936C > T polymorphism, the T/T genotype, however, had a worse overall survival (OS) compared with the C/C genotype (P = 0.037). The -460 T/C or C/C genotype was a poor prognostic factor in patients with stage 0 or I gastric cancer (OS: hazard ratio (HR) = 3.96, disease-free survival (DFS): HR = 4.87). In the haplotype analysis, the CACC haplotype was associated with a significantly worse survival when compared with the TGGC haplotype (OS: HR = 1.72, DFS: HR = 1.73).
Conclusions: VEGF gene polymorphisms were found to be an independent prognostic marker for patients with gastric cancer. Consequently, the analysis of VEGF gene polymorphisms can help identify patient subgroups at high risk of a poor disease outcome.