Prognostic significance of CDC20 expression in malignancy patients: A meta-analysis

Cell Division Cycle Protein 20(CDC20) is reported to promote cancer initiation, progression and drug resistance in many preclinical models and is demonstrated in human cancer tissues. However, the correlation between CDC20 and cancer patients' prognosis has not yet been systematically evaluated. Therefore, this present meta-analysis was performed to determine the prognostic value of CDC20 expression in various malignancy tumors.

A thorough database search was performed in EMBASE, PubMed, Cochrane Library and Web of Science from inception to May 2022. Stata14.0 Software was used for the statistical analysis. The pooled hazard ratios(HRs) and their 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were used to analysis of overall survival (OS), recurrence-free survival (RFS), distant-metastasis free survival (DMFS). Qualities of the included literature were assessed by JBI Critical appraisal checklist. Egger's test was used to assess publication bias in the included studies.

Ten articles were selected, and 2342 cancer patients were enrolled. The cancer types include breast, colorectal, lung, gastric, oral, prostate, urothelial bladder cancer, and hepatocellular carcinoma. The result showed strong significant associations between high expression of CDC20 and endpoints: OS (HR 2.52, 95%CI 2.13-2.99; HR 2.05, 95% CI 1.50-2.82, respectively) in the multivariate analysis and in the univariate analysis. Also, high expression of CDC20 was significantly connected with poor RFS (HR 2.08, 95%CI 1.46-2.98) and poor DMFS (HR 4.49, 95%CI 1.57-12.85). The subgroup analysis was also performed, which revealed that CDC20 upregulated expression was related to poor OS in non-small cell lung cancer (HR 2.40, 95% CI 1.91-3.02).

This meta-analysis demonstrated that highly expressing CDC20 was associated with poor survival in human malignancy tumors. CDC20 may be a valuable prognostic predictive biomarker and a potential therapeutic target in various cancer parents.