Clinicopathological and prognostic significance of epithelial cell transforming sequence 2 expression in cancers: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Numerous studies have investigated the prognostic significance of ECT2 (epithelial cell transforming sequence 2) expression in patients with cancer. Nevertheless, conflicting results have been obtained. We thus performed a meta-analysis to systematically assess the prognostic significance of ECT2 in cancer. Electronic databases (PubMed and EMBASE) were searched for eligible studies. Hazard ratios (HR) and odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to estimate effect sizes. A total of 5,305 patients from 19 articles and 21 studies were included. The pooled results revealed that high ECT2 expression was correlated with advanced TNM stage (OR = 2.17; 95% CI: 1.42–3.32), positive lymph node metastasis (OR = 2.98; 95% CI: 2.28–3.89), distant metastasis (OR = 2.25; 95% CI: 1.03–4.92), and poor tumour differentiation (OR = 2.25; 95% CI: 1.03–4.92). More importantly, high ECT2 expression was significantly associated with poor overall survival (HR = 2.26; 95% CI, 1.84–2.78) and recurrence-free survival (HR = 1.52; 95% CI, 1.24–1.86). Our results suggested that ECT2 is a promising prognostic indicator and therapeutic target for cancer.

Keywords:

• ECT2
• cancer
• survival
• meta-analysis

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Editage (www.editage.cn) for English language editing.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Author contributions

Bin Li designed this study, extracted data, and wrote the original manuscript.

Jun-Ping extracted data.

Zheng Li and Ci Yin performed the statistical analyses.

Jian-Bao Yang and Yu-Qi Meng resolved the conflicting issues about data extraction, and checked the grammar errors in the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

The study was funded by Cuiying Graduate Supervisor Applicant Training Program of Lanzhou University Second Hospital [201801] and Technological Development Contract of Lanzhou University [(19)0402].