Background: The prognostic significance of podoplanin (PDPN) in tumor cells for cancer patients' survival remains controversial. Therefore, we performed this meta-analysis to clarify the relationship between the podoplanin-positive tumor cells and cancer prognosis.
Method: Eligible studies were identified by searching the Pubmed and EBSCO online databases up to August 2019. Hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to evaluate the correlation between podoplanin expression and overall survival (OS) and/or disease-free survival (DFS) and odds ratios (ORs) with 95% CIs severed as the summarized statistics for clinicopathological characteristic.
Results: A total of 2155 patients from 21 eligible studies were included. The results revealed that high expression of podoplanin was associated with a poor survival rate in cancer patients. Further subgroup analysis stratified by tumor type showed that podoplanin-positive tumor cell infiltration had a negative prognostic effect associated with survival in esophageal cancer and oropharyngeal cancer. In addition, high expression of these cells was significantly associated with N stage, T stage, TNM stage and vascular invasion.
Conclusion: Our study suggests the over-expression of podoplanin might be a significant prognostic indicator for patients with esophageal and oropharyngeal cancer.
Keywords: cancer; meta-analysis; podoplanin; prognostic value.