Background: Recent studies have suggested that VEGFR-3 is involved in the development of gastric cancer, however, the results are contradictory. Hence, we conducted a meta-analysis to assess the correlation between VEGFR-3 and the clinicopathological characteristics of gastric cancer to assess its prognostic value.
Methods: An electronic search for relevant articles was conducted in PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, EMBASE database, and Chinese CNKI. Correlations between VEGFR-3 expression and clinicopathological features and survival outcomes were analyzed. Pooled odds ratios (ORs) and hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated.
Results: Positive VEGFR-3 expression was not correlated with gender or tumor differentiation. However, high levels of VEGFR-3 expression were significantly associated with depth of invasion and lymph node metastasis. Moreover, VEGFR-3 expression was associated with poor three year and five year overall survival rates (OS) in GC patients.
Conclusions: Our meta-analysis found that VEGFR-3 expression was associated with depth of invasion and lymph node metastasis in gastric cancer. The results suggest that VEGFR-3 may be a useful prognostic biomarker for gastric cancer.
Keywords: Gastric cancer; Meta-analysis; Prognosis; Vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 3.
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