Monocyte chemotactic protein-1 expression as a prognosic biomarker in patients with solid tumor: a meta analysis

A great deal of studies have been performed on the prognostic value of monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1) in solid tumors in recent years. However, no consistent outcomes are reported. Therefore, the prognostic value of MCP-1 still remains controversial in patients with solid tumors. Here we aimed to evaluate the prognostic value of MCP-1 expression for patients with solid tumors.

Comprehensive literature was selected from PUBMED and EMBASE and clinical studies which reported analysis of survival data about MCP-1 in solid tumors were included. Stata 11.0 was used for performing a meta-analysis on evaluating the relation between MCP-1 and clinical staging, overall survival (OS) and disease free survival (DFS).

Eleven studies with a total of 1324 patients with solid tumors were included into our meta-analysis. The result showed that high concentration of MCP-1 was related to a worse OS (HR = 1.95, 95% CI 1.32-2.88). The subgroup analysis on different location of tumors showed that high concentration of MCP-1 meant bad prognosis in patients with digestive cancer (HR = 2.66, 95% CI 1.44-4.91) and urogenital cancer (HR = 2.23, 95% CI 1.61-3.10), even head and neck cancer (HR = 1.99, 95% CI 0.95-4.18) other than respiratory cancer (HR = 1.10, 95% CI 0.39-3.11). Another subgroup analysed on different sites of cancer and indicated a poor prognosis on adenocarcinoma (HR = 2.10, 95% CI 1.63-2.69).

Our findings suggest that MCP-1 can be regarded as a poor prognostic maker for solid tumors and may represent important new therapeutic targets.