Gao Sheng, Ma Jing-Jing, Lu Cheng
Tumour Biol. 2014 Feb;35(2):1523-9. doi: 10.1007/s13277-013-1211-3.
Vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C) is considered as a prime mediator of lymphangiogenesis and has been implicated in carcinogenesis and metastasis. Various studies examined the relationship between VEGF-C protein overexpression with the clinical outcome in patients with breast cancer but yielded conflicting results. Electronic databases updated to April 2013 were searched to find relevant studies. A meta-analysis was conducted with eligible studies which quantitatively evaluated the relationship between VEGF-C overexpression and survival of patients with breast cancer. Survival data were aggregated and quantitatively analyzed. We performed a meta-analysis of 11 studies (n = 1,357 patients) that evaluated the correlation between VEGF-C overexpression detected by immunohistochemistry and survival in patients with breast cancer. Combined hazard ratios suggested that VEGF-C overexpression was not associated with poor prognosis of disease-free survival (HR [hazard ratio] = 0.80, 95 % CI [confidence interval]: 0.51-1.09), overall survival (OS) (HR = 1.08, 95 % CI: 0.37-1.78) in patients with breast cancer. In the stratified analysis by patient source, significantly risks were not found among Asians or non-Asians. No significant heterogeneity was observed among all studies. VEGF-C overexpression was not associated with poor disease-free survival or overall survival in breast cancer.
血管内皮生长因子-C（VEGF-C）被认为是淋巴管生成的主要介质，并与癌症发生和转移有关。各种研究探讨了VEGF-C蛋白过表达与乳腺癌患者临床结局之间的关系，但结果相互矛盾。检索了截至2013年4月更新的电子数据库以查找相关研究。对符合条件的研究进行荟萃分析，定量评估VEGF-C过表达与乳腺癌患者生存之间的关系。汇总生存数据并进行定量分析。我们对11项研究（n = 1357例患者）进行了荟萃分析，这些研究评估了通过免疫组织化学检测到的VEGF-C过表达与乳腺癌患者生存之间的相关性。合并风险比表明，VEGF-C过表达与乳腺癌患者无病生存（HR[风险比]= 0.80，95%CI[置信区间]：0.51-1.09）、总生存（OS）（HR = 1.08，95%CI：0.37-1.78）的不良预后无关。在按患者来源进行的分层分析中，未在亚洲人或非亚洲人中发现显著风险。所有研究中均未观察到显著的异质性。VEGF-C过表达与乳腺癌患者无病生存或总生存不良无关。
