Clinicopathological and Prognostic Value of USP22 Expression in Gastric Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis and Database Validation

Yuhang Wang; Zirui Jia; Jiacheng Gao; Tingting Zhou; Xiangwen Zhang; Guo Zu

doi:10.3389/fsurg.2022.920595

Clinicopathological and Prognostic Value of USP22 Expression in Gastric Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis and Database Validation

Front Surg. 2022 Jun 16:9:920595. doi: 10.3389/fsurg.2022.920595. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Yuhang Wang^{1

2}, Zirui Jia^{1

2}, Jiacheng Gao^{1

2}, Tingting Zhou³, Xiangwen Zhang¹, Guo Zu¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of General Surgery, The Dalian Municipal Central Hospital Affiliated of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China.
² Department of Graduate School, Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China.
³ Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China.

Abstract

Background: It has been reported that there is a correlation between the level of ubiquitin-specific protease 22 (USP22) and the clinicopathological parameters and prognosis of gastric cancer (GC) patients, but the conclusions are inconsistent. Hence, a meta-analysis must be conducted to clarify the relationship between USP22 expression and clinicopathological and prognostic value of GC patients to provide more accurate evidence.

Methods: According to the predetermined selection criteria, systematic file retrieval was performed. The hazard ratio (HR) or odds ratio (OR) and its 95% confidence interval (CI) were used to evaluate the relationship between USP22 expression and clinicopathological and prognostic value of GC patients.

Results: In a total of 802 patients, those with GC were finally included in 6 studies. The pooled results demonstrated that the expression of USP22 was significantly increased in GC tissues compared with control tissues (OR = 9.947, 95% CI, 6.074-16.291, P = 0.000), and USP22 expression was related to lymph node metastasis (OR = 2.415, 95% CI, 1.082, P = 0.031), distant metastasis (OR = 3.956, 95% CI, 1.365-11.464, P = 0.011) and TNM stage (OR = 2.973, 95% CI, 1.153-7.666, P = 0.024). Nevertheless, the expression of USP22 was not correlated with gender (OR = 1.202, 95% CI, 0.877-1.648, P = 0.253), age (OR = 1.090, 95% CI, 0.811-1.466, P = 0.568), tumor size (OR = 0.693,95% CI, 0.348-1.380, P = 0.297), tumor differentiation (OR = 1.830, 95%CI, 0.948-3.531, P = 0.072) and depth of invasion (OR = 2.320, 95% CI, 0.684-7.871, P = 0.177). Moreover, a high expression of USP22 predicted a poor overall survival (OS) in GC patients (HR = 2.012, 95% CI, 1.522-2.658, P = 0.000). The database of Kaplan-Meier plotter confirmed that a high expression of USP22 was correlated with poor prognostics in GC patients (HR = 1.41, 95% CI, 1.18-1.68, P < 0.01).

Conclusion: USP22 overexpression in GC tissues is positively related to lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis and TNM stage and indicates a poor clinical outcome of GC patients, but it is not associated with age, gender, depth of invasion, tumor differentiation and tumor size of GC patients.Systematic Review Registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, identifier: 338361.

Keywords: USP22; clinicopathological parameters; gastric cancer; meta-analysis; overall survival.

Publication types

Review