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Vascular endothelial growth factor levels in patients with obstructive sleep apnea: a meta-analysis

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Abstract

Published articles regarding the blood levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) patients are contradictory. The objective of this study was to explore whether VEGF levels is high or not in OSA subjects via quantitatively statistical analysis. The electronic databases of Pubmed, Web of Science, EMBASE were systematic searched. The VEGF levels and clinical characteristics of participants between OSA group and control group were extracted for analysis. Weighted mean difference (WMD) or standard mean difference (SMD) with 95 % confidence interval (CI) was calculated by fixed effects or random effects model. Appropriate statistical software was employed for data synthesis. Totaling 15 articles with 697 participants were included in this study. Pooled meta-analysis showed that blood VEGF concentrations were significantly higher in OSA patients than in control subjects (SMD 1.89, 95 % CI 0.92–2.87, p = 0.000). Subgroup analysis demonstrated that when compared with control group, OSA patients with age ≥50 years (SMD 2.54, 95 % CI 1.28–3.80, p = 0.000), apnea hypopnea index ≥30 events/h (SMD 2.47, 95 % CI 1.20–3.73, p = 0.000) had higher VEGF levels. Compared with control subjects, OSA patients had an elevated VEGF in serum (SMD 3.55, 95 % CI 1.82–5.28, p = 0.000) rather than in plasma. High blood VEGF concentrations were observed in OSA patients, particularly in the older and more serious patients.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Department of Respiratory Medicine, Zhongshan Hospital, Xiamen University, No. 201, Hubin Nan Road, Siming District, Xiamen, 361004, Fujian Province, China

      Xiao-Bin Zhang, Xing-Tang Jiang, Fang-Rong Cai, Hui-Qing Zeng & Yan-Ping Du

    2. Teaching Hospital of Fujian Medical University, No. 201, Hubin Nan Road, Siming District, Xiamen, 361004, Fujian Province, China

      Xiao-Bin Zhang, Xing-Tang Jiang, Fang-Rong Cai, Hui-Qing Zeng & Yan-Ping Du

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    1. Xiao-Bin Zhang
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    2. Xing-Tang Jiang
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    Correspondence to Xiao-Bin Zhang or Hui-Qing Zeng.

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    Funding

    This work was supported by grant 2013-2-88 for Youth Research Fund from Fujian Provincial Health Bureau and grant 3502Z20154019 for Fund from Xiamen Science and Technology Bureau.

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    All authors declared that they had no conflict of interest.

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    This study was a meta-analysis, and did not concern with human participants performed by any of the authors.

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    All authors contributed equally to this work.

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    Zhang, XB., Jiang, XT., Cai, FR. et al. Vascular endothelial growth factor levels in patients with obstructive sleep apnea: a meta-analysis. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol 274, 661–670 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-016-4102-6

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-016-4102-6

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