Vascular endothelial growth factor and breast cancer risk

Abstract

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a key factor in angiogenesis and is important to carcinogenesis. Previous studies relating circulating levels of VEGF to breast cancer have been limited by small numbers of participants and lack of adjustment for confounders. We studied the association between serum VEGF and breast cancer in an unmatched case-control study of 407 pre- and postmenopausal women (N=203 cases, N=204 controls). Logistic regression was used to model breast cancer risk as a function of natural log transformed VEGF levels adjusted for age, Gail score, education, physical activity, history of breastfeeding, serum testosterone, and hormone therapy use. The majority of the population was postmenopausal (67.6%) and the average age was 56 years; age and menopausal status were similar among cases and controls. Geometric mean VEGF levels were non-significantly higher in cases (321.4 pg/mL) than controls (291.4 pg/mL; p=0.21). In a multivariable model the odds of breast cancer was 37% higher for women with VEGF levels ≥314.2 pg/mL compared to those with levels below 314.2 pg/mL, albeit not significantly (p=0.16). There was no interaction between VEGF and menopausal status (p=0.52). In this case-control study VEGF was not significantly associated with breast cancer risk in pre- and postmenopausal women.

Risk Factors of Breast Cancer

“…A subgroup analysis was performed according to types of outcome (ie, invasive breast cancer (n = 61 studies 26-57,60,66-88,90-94 and combined invasive with CIS (n = 5 studies 61-65 ). This resulted in the corresponding pooled ORs of 1.10 (95% CI = 1.02-1.19) and 1.08 (95% CI = 0.93-1.26), respectively, see Supplement Table 2.…”

Soluble VE-cadherin in metastatic breast cancer: an independent prognostic factor for both progression-free survival and overall survival

“…VEGF and VE-cadherin have been identified as mediator of tumour angiogenesis, a process required for invasion and metastasis of solid tumours ( Weidner et al , 1991 ; Le Guelte et al , 2011 ). Although the role of VEGF in tumour progression has been largely demonstrated, studies failed to identify soluble VEGF level as a predictive biomarker ( Bachelot et al , 2003 ; Reeves et al , 2009 ). Vilgrain et al demonstrated in patients with glioblastoma that VEGF can induce VE-cadherin cleavage and consequently induce sVE-cadherin release.…”

A prospective study of angiogenic markers and postmenopausal breast cancer risk in the prostate, lung, colorectal, and ovarian cancer screening trial

“…Circulating angiogenic markers have been used for breast cancer staging and prognosis [ 3 ], but efforts to study their role as etiologic agents or early diagnostic markers of breast cancer are limited, and to our knowledge, no epidemiologic study has assessed risks using samples collected several years prior to postmenopausal breast cancer diagnosis. In studies comparing marker levels in newly diagnosed cases to non-cases, most [ 9 , 11 , 12 ], but not all [ 10 , 23 – 25 ], found higher levels of circulating VEGF or PlGF in breast cancer cases than in non-cases, which may reflect local tumor production [ 26 ]. Contrary to this, we found VEGF was lowest in women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer close to the time of blood donation (within the year of enrollment in the cohort), and unexpectedly, levels tended to be higher among women diagnosed several years after blood donation.…”