Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) polymorphism and increased risk of epithelial ovarian cancer

Introduction Angiogenesis (AG) is essential for epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) development. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), encoded by the VEGF gene, and endostatin, the product of the COL18A1 gene, act as a potent promoter and an inhibitor of AG, respectively. In the present study, we tested whether VEGF C936T and COL18A1 D104N polymorphisms alter the risk of EOC. Methods Genomic DNA from 131 EOC patients and 137 controls were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism methods. The differences between groups were analyzed by χ 2 or Fisher’s exact test and logistic regression analysis. Results The frequency of the VEGF 936CC genotype was higher in patients than in controls (84.8 % vs. 75.3 %, P = 0.03). Individuals with respective genotypes had a 1.98 (95 % CI 1.04–3.78)-fold increased risk of EOC than those with the remaining genotypes. An excess of VEGF 936CC plus COL18A1 DN genotype was seen in patients when compared to controls (48.6 % vs. 30.5 %); however, only a tendency toward a statistically significant difference in genotype frequencies was found in the study ( P = 0.06), reflecting a trend toward an increased risk of 2.44 for EOC in carriers of the combined genotype. Conclusion Our data present, for the first time, preliminary evidence that VEGF C936T alone or combined with the COL18A1 D104N polymorphism of AG constitutes an important inherited EOC determinant.