J Cancer 2020; 11(5):1141-1150. doi:10.7150/jca.36469 This issue Cite
Research Paper
1. Medical Research Office, Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan, China.
2. Department of Infectious Disease, Henan Provincial People's Hospital, People's Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan, 450003, China.
3. College of Public Health, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China.
4. College of Art and Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, US.
Background: The Matrix metalloproteinase-14 (MMP-14) expression has been shown to be overexpressed in different cancers. However, there is no comprehensive quantitative evaluation of the MMP-14 prognostic value in digestive system carcinoma (DSC). The aim of this study is to explore the correlation between the MMP-14 expression and DSC prognosis.
Methods: We conducted a meta-analysis to estimate the association strength between MMP-14 expression and prognosis. GEPIA and Kaplan Meier plotters were used to assess overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS)/progression-free survival (PFS) in DSC patients and the differential expression of MMP-14 in DSC tissues and adjacent tissues.
Results: A total of 20 studies including 2,519 patients with OS and 438 patients with DFS/PFS data were analyzed in evidence synthesis. Overall, the combined hazard ratio (HR) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI) was 1.98 (95%Cl: 1.77-2.22, P<0.001) for OS and 3.61 (95%Cl: 2.39-5.43, P<0.001) for DFS/PFS. For subgroup analyses, significant correlations were revealed between increased MMP-14 expression and poor OS in patients with gastric cancer (HR=2.21, 95%CI: 1.76-2.77, P<0.001), esophageal carcinoma (HR=2.01, 95%CI: 1.58-2.57, P<0.001), oral cancer (HR = 1.69, 95% CI: 1.30-2.20, P < 0.001) (HR=2.14, 95%CI 1.35-2.19, P<0.001) and hepatocarcinoma. In database verification analyses, the MMP-14 expression levels in normal tissues were significantly higher than that in DSC tissues, and significant associations were observed between high MMP-14 expression levels and poor prognosis.
Conclusions: The high expression levels of MMP-14 might predict poor prognosis in DSC. Larger prospective clinical cohort studies are required to validate the prognostic role.
Keywords: MMP-14, expression, prognosis, digestive system carcinoma, meta-analysis.