J Cancer 2018; 9(17):3138-3148. doi:10.7150/jca.25377 This issue Cite
Research Paper
1. Biotherapy Center, the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, Henan, China
2. Cancer Center, the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, Henan, China
3. Imaging Department, the Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, Henan, China
4. School of Life Sciences, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, Henan, China
5. Henan Key Laboratory for Tumor Immunology and Biotherapy, Zhengzhou, Henan 450052, P.R. China
* These authors have contributed equally to this work
Background: Accumulating evidence indicated that the CXC chemokine receptor (CXCR) 7 (CXCR7) was overexpressed in a variety of tumors. However, the value of the CXCR7 expression in predicting prognosis in solid tumors remains controversial. Therefore, we performed this meta-analysis to evaluate the correlation between CXCR7 expression and lymph node metastasis (LNM), tumor pathological grade and survival, including overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS) and recurrence-free survival (RFS).
Methods: Eligible studies were searched in PubMed, Web of Science, and PMC up to April 2018. A total of 27 studies were included in this meta-analysis. Odds ratio (OR), hazard ratio (HR) and 95 % confidence intervals (CI) were used as effect measures.
Results: The meta-analysis showed that high expression of CXCR7 predicted a high risk of LNM (pooled OR = 2.22, 95%CI: 1.41-3.50), high tumor grade (pooled OR = 1.94, 95%CI: 1.20-3.13), poor OS (pooled HR = 1.66, 95%CI: 1.30-2.03), and poor DFS/RFS (pooled HR = 1.82, 95%CI: 1.21-2.43). Subgroup analysis showed that CXCR7 expression had a positive correlation with LNM in pan-adenocarcinoma subgroup (pooled OR = 3.73, 95%CI: 2.21-6.30), while no correlation was found in pan-squamous cancer subgroup (pooled OR = 1.29, 95%CI: 0.56-2.96). Subgroup analysis of tumor grade revealed that high expression of CXCR7 predicted high tumor grade both in pan-squamous cancer and pan-adenocarcinoma (pooled OR = 3.58, 95%CI: 1.39-9.22, pooled OR = 2.25, 95%CI: 1.20-4.20). As in OS group, we divided the data based on analysis method and it turned out that overexpressed CXCR7 predicted worse OS both in multivariate analysis (pooled HR =1.57, 95%CI: 1.12-2.01) and univariate analysis subgroup (pooled HR =1.86, 95%CI: 1.23-2.49).
Conclusions: Our meta-analysis revealed that high expression of CXCR7 predicted unfavorable prognosis and may serve as potential targets of cancer therapy.
Keywords: CXCR7, lymph node metastasis, tumor grade, survival, solid tumors, meta-analysis