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Genome-Wide Analysis of DNA Methylation in Gastrointestinal Cancer
Published on: September 18, 2020
The prognostic value of pSTAT3 in gastric cancer: a meta-analysis
1Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, No. 58, Zhongshan 2nd Street, Guangzhou, 510080, Guangdong Province, People's Republic of China.
Introduction:
The prognostic value of pSTAT3 in gastric cancer has been assessed for years while the results remain controversial and heterogeneous. Therefore, we conducted this meta-analysis to determine the prognostic effect of pSTAT3 in gastric cancer patients.
Methods:
We searched PubMed, Embase and Web of Science and eight studies comprising 1314 gastric cancer patients were included in our meta-analysis. Hazard ratios (HRs) with 95 % confidence interval (95 % CI) were extracted to perform meta-analysis on the overall survival. Subgroup analysis according to study location, publication year, number of patients and quality score of studies were also investigated.
Results:
Our results revealed that pSTAT3-positive patients had a significant increase in mortality risk as compared to pSTAT3-negative patients in the random-effects model (combined HR 1.87, 95 % CI 1.28-2.74). However, our result showed no statistically significant association between pSTAT3 and clinicopathological characteristics (TMN stage, lymph node metastasis, grade of differentiation, Lauren classification and distant metastasis) of gastric cancer.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, our meta-analysis suggests that positive expression of pSTAT3 is associated with poor prognosis in gastric cancer patients.

