Invasive and prognostic significance of pRB in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: a meta-analysis

This paper investigates the association between protein retinoblastoma (pRB) loss and the T,N stage and prognosis in esophageal squamous cell carcinomas (ESCCs) using meta-analysis. We conducted a meta-analysis of 16 studies, comprising 1,117 patients to clarify this issue. All the studies searched by the electronic literature PubMed and http://www.KJEBM.com, which had been published during the period from January 1996 to January 2012 according to the inclusion criteria. Summary odds ratios (OR) were calculated using fixed or random-effects models. The summary odds ratios (ORs) for pRB inactive were 0.64 (95% confidence interval [CI]:0.45-0.91, P = 0.01) for T1/T2 versus T3/T4 tumors; summary OR = 0.69 (95% CI:0.51-0.94, P = 0.02) for N0 versus N1 tumors. The association between pRB loss and prognosis was examined in nine studies, and the summary hazard ratio was 1.39 (95% CI:1.11-1.74, P = 0.004). pRB inactive was significant associated with T3/T4 tumors and N1 stage as well as adverse prognosis for ESCCs. It appears warranted to prospectively validate that pRB loss may be used for subdividing the T,N stage evaluation of patients with ESCCs, and these patients may be the preponderant people for individualized treatment or target therapy.