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Correlation Between Tumor Vasculogenic Mimicry and Poor Prognosis of Human Digestive Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

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Pathology & Oncology Research

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Abstract

Vasculogenic mimicry (VM) is a new pattern of blood supplement independent of endothelial vessels, which is related with tumor invasion, metastasis and prognosis. However, the role of VM in the prognosis of cancer patients is controversial. This study aimed to perform a meta-analysis of the published data to attempt to clarify the prognostic value of VM in the digestive cancer. Relevant studies were retrieved from the PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure and VIP databases published before March 29, 2018. Studies were included if they detected VM in the digestive cancer and analyzed the overall survival (OS) or disease-free survival (DFS) according to VM status. Two independent reviewers screened the studies, extracted data, and evaluated the quality of included studies with the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. Meta-analysis was performed using STATA 12.0 software. A total of 22 studies with 2411 patients were included in this meta-analysis. Meta-analysis showed that VM was related with the poor OS (HR = 2.30, 95% CI: 2.06–2.56, P < 0.001) and DFS (HR = 2.60, 95% CI: 2.07–3.27, P < 0.001) of patients with digestive cancer. Subgroup analysis showed VM was related with tumor differentiation, lymph node metastasis and TNM stage. Moreover, the present meta-analysis was reliable, and there was no obvious publication bias. This meta-analysis suggested that VM was a poor prognosis of digestive cancer patients. Further large and well-designed studies are required.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81572394), the Natural Science Foundation of Zhangzhou, Fujian, China (grant No. ZZ2017J36) and the Youth Nursery Foundation of the Affiliated Southeast Hospital of Xiamen University, Zhangzhou, Fujian, China (grant No. 16Y019).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathology, The Affiliated Southeast Hospital of Xiamen University, Zhangzhou, 363000, Fujian Province, China

    Hong-Yue Ren & Jia-Rong Meng

  2. Biobank, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, No 55 Zhenhai Road, Xiamen, 361003, Fujian Province, China

    Jin-Xing Shen, Xiao-Mei Mao, Xiao-Yun Zhang, Pan Zhou, Si-Yang Li, Zhi-Wei Zheng & Dong-Yan Shen

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  1. Hong-Yue Ren
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Supplemental Figure 1

Forest plot showing the combined relative HR for overall survival based on region (A), tumor types (B), VM assay methods (C), the number of case (D), the follow-up time (E) and the quality (F). (PNG 2069 kb)

High resolution image (TIF 2871 kb)

Supplemental Figure 2

Forest plot showing the relationship between VM and the clinicopathological features of patients with digestive cancer including gender (A), age (B), tumor size (C), differentiation (D), lymph node metastasis (E) and TNM stage (F). (PNG 796 kb)

High resolution image (TIF 1081 kb)

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Ren, HY., Shen, JX., Mao, XM. et al. Correlation Between Tumor Vasculogenic Mimicry and Poor Prognosis of Human Digestive Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Pathol. Oncol. Res. 25, 849–858 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12253-018-0496-3

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