The prognosis and clinicopathology of CXCR4 in gastric cancer patients: a meta-analysis.

The chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4) has been widely investigated in diagnosis and prognosis of gastric cancer (GC). However, the impact of CXCR4 on GC patients remains controversial; Here, we conducted a meta-analysis to obtain the precise role of CXCR4 in GC prognosis and clinicopathology. Thirteen published studies with a total of 1,936 patients were included. Original data included the hazard ratio (HR) of overall survival (OS) and odds ratio (OR) in GC patients. We combined HR/OR with 95% confidence interval (CI) to estimate the hazard. In this study, OS was significantly related to CXCR4 expression, with the HR 2.63 (95% CI 1.69-4.09; p < 0.0001), and a significant correlation was also revealed between CXCR4 expression and stage (I + II, +) (OR 0.52, 95% CI 0.32-0.83; p = 0.007), depth of invasion (T1/T2, +) (OR 0.44, 95% CI 0.27-0.73; p = 0.001), lymph node metastasis (LN, +) (OR 2.30, 95% CI 1.57-3.36; p < 0.0001), as well as vascular invasion (vas.inv, +) (OR 0.72, 95% CI 0.53-0.98; p = 0.04). Heterogeneity was observed among the included studies with OS (I(2) = 51%), stage (I(2) = 78%), depth of invasion (I(2) = 74%), lymph node metastasis (I(2) = 64%), and histology differentiation (I(2) = 79%). No publication bias was observed. In conclusion, this meta-analysis showed CXCR4 expression indicates poor prognosis in GC patients with advanced stage or deep invasion in GC tissues, which also implied lymph node metastasis and vascular invasion. Thus, CXCR4 could help predict patient prognosis and guide clinical diagnosis and treatment.