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©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Prognostic value of Muc5AC in gastric cancer: A meta-analysis
Chuan-Tao Zhang, Ke-Cheng He, Fei Pan, Yuan Li, Jiang Wu
Chuan-Tao Zhang, Teaching Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Sichuan Province Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan Province, China
Ke-Cheng He, Department of Cardiology, General Hospital of PLA Chengdu Military Area Command, Chengdu 610083, Sichuan Province, China
Fei Pan, Key Laboratory of Oncology, Cancer Center, Chinese PLA General Hospital and Chinese PLA Medical School, Beijing 100853, China
Yuan Li, the Second College of Clinical Medicine, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu 611137, Sichuan Province, China
Jiang Wu, the Second Affiliated Hospital, the Second College of Clinical Medicine, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu 611137, Sichuan Province, China
Author contributions: Zhang CT and He KC contributed equally to the work as co-first authors; He KC and Zhang CT designed the study, analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript; He KC and Zhang CT designed the research; He KC and Li Y performed the research; Pan F contributed analytical tools; Wu J designed the study and edited the manuscript as corresponding author.
Supported by Programs Foundation of Ministry of Education of China, No. 20115132120004; National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81202624, No. 81102720 and No. 81072902.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Jiang Wu, MD, PhD, the Second Affiliated Hospital, the Second College of Clinical Medicine, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 1166 Liutai Street, Chengdu 611137, Sichuan Province, China. cd120@vip.163.com
Telephone: +86-28-85222959 Fax: +86-28-85250977
Received: May 24, 2014
Peer-review started: May 24, 2014
First decision: July 15, 2014
Revised: December 22, 2014
Accepted: February 12, 2015
Article in press: February 13, 2015
Published online: September 28, 2015
AIM: To assess the correlation between decreased Muc5AC expression and patients’ survival and clinicopathological characteristics by conducting a meta-analysis.
METHODS: Literature searches were performed in PubMed and EMBASE, and 11 studies met our criteria. Summary hazard ratios or odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to estimate the effect. For the pooled analysis of the correlation between decreased Muc5AC expression and clinicopathological characteristics (tumour invasion depth, lymph node metastasis, tumour-node-metastasis stage, tumour size, venous invasion and lymphatic invasion), ORs and their variance were combined to estimate the effect.
RESULTS: Eleven retrospective cohort studies comprising 2135 patients were included to assess the association between Muc5AC expression and overall survival and/or clinicopathological characteristics. Decreased Muc5AC expression was significantly correlated with poor overall survival of gastric cancer patients (pooled HR = 1.35, 95%CI: 1.08-1.7). Moreover, decreased Muc5AC expression was also significantly associated with tumour invasion depth (pooled OR = 2.12, 95%CI: 1.56-2.87) and lymph node metastasis (pooled OR = 1.56, 95%CI: 1.00-2.44) in gastric cancer.
CONCLUSION: Decreased Muc5AC expression might be a poor prognostic predictor for gastric cancer.
Core tip: The association of decreased Muc5AC expression in gastric cancer and its prognostic value have been investigated for years; however, the results are controversial and inconclusive. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first meta-analysis suggesting that decreased Muc5AC expression is an unfavourable prognostic biomarker for gastric cancer patients. Patients with decreased Muc5AC expression are more likely to have poor overall survival and aggressive histopathological features.
