Background: The prognostic significance of COX2 for survival of patients with oral cancer remains controversial. Thus, the meta-analysis was performed in order to identify COX2 expression impact on prognosis of oral cancer.
Method: Relevant literatures were searched using the following electronic databases without any language restrictions: Web of Science, the Cochrane Library Database, PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, and CBM. Version 12.0 STATA software (Stata Corporation, College Station, Texas, USA) was used for the current meta-analysis. Odds ratios (ORs) and hazard ratios (HRs) with their corresponding 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were also calculated to clarify the correlation between COX2 expression and prognosis of oral cancer.
Results: Final analysis of 979 oral cancer patients from 12 clinical cohort studies was performed. The meta-analysis results show that COX2 expression in cancer tissues was significantly higher than those in normal and benign tissues (all P < 0.05). Combined HR of COX2 suggests that positive COX2 expression has a shorter overall survival (OS) than those of negative COX2 expression (P < 0.05).
Conclusion: The meta-analysis study shows that elevated COX2 expression may be associated with the pathogenesis of oral cancer and with a worse prognosis in oral cancer patients.