Osteopontin (OPN) has been implicated in tumor development and progression for several years. However, the prognostic value of OPN overexpression in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains controversial. We performed a meta-analysis to assess the relationship between OPN overexpression and clinical outcome of HCC. A meta-analysis of seven studies (1,158 patients) was carried out to evaluate the association between OPN and overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) in HCC patients. The correlation between OPN and tumor vascular invasion or other invasion-related parameters was also assessed. Data were synthesized with random effect model of DerSimonian and Laird, hazard ratio (HR) or odds ratio (OR) with its 95% confidence interval (CI) was used as the effect size estimate. Our analysis results indicated that high OPN expression predicted poor OS (HR: 1.37, 95% CI: 1.21-1.55) and DFS (HR: 1.62, 95% CI: 1.24-2.11) of HCC. OPN overexpression tended to be associated with the presence of tumor vascular invasion (OR: 1.93, 95% CI: 0.97-3.84) and advanced tumor grade (OR: 1.74, 95% CI: 0.95-3.18). By this study, we conclude that OPN overexpression indicates a poor prognosis for patients with HCC, it may also have predictive potential for HCC invasion and metastasis.
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