Catechol O-Methyltransferase Val158/Met and Hypertension: A Meta-Analysis

Hypertension is a preventable risk factor of cardiovascular diseases. It is considered a major cause of CVD-morbidity and mortality worldwide. Some risk factors and prevention strategies related to hypertension were studied intensively, however, with growing the burden of this disorder and genetic has become the dominant field of treating diseases, still, specific genes involved in increasing blood pressure remain to be identified. This meta-analysis was conducted to assess the relationship of COMT Val158/Met variation to high systolic and diastolic blood pressure. PubMed and Web of Science (WOS) were intensively searched for the genetic association on the link of COMT Val158/Met to hypertension. The search was done up to October 15th 2020 and updated on November 22nd 2020. Two investigators were independently extracting data and evaluating the risk of bias using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Q-genie tool was used to assess the quality of all included articles. Met-dominant model (Met/Met + Val/Met vs Val/Val) showed a significant association to systolic and diastolic blood pressure with a pooled standardized mean difference of -0.215 and 95%CI [-0.399 to -0.0300] and -0.205, 95%CI [-0.390 to -0.0197], respectively. Met allele was significantly related to high systolic and diastolic blood pressure. However, high-quality, case-control studies are lacking.