Perineural Invasion as a Predictive Biomarker of Groin Metastases and Survival Outcomes in Vulvar Cancer: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

We searched international databases to identify evidence that refer to the impact of perineural invasion on survival outcomes of patients with squamous cell vulvar cancer. We identified six retrospective cohort studies that investigated 887 patients. Of those, 234 (26.4%) had perineural invasion in the pathology analysis. Women with perineural invasion were more likely to have inguinal lymph node metastases (HR 3.45, 95% CI 1.12, 10.67). The impact of perineural invasion on progression-free survival rates was significant (HR 1.61, 95% CI 1.21, 2.15) as well as its impact on overall survival rates (HR 2.73, 95% CI 1.94, 3.84).

Keywords:

• Perineural invasion
• vulvar cancer
• squamous
• meta-analysis

Acknowledgment

The authors did not receive any type of funding for the present work.

Author contributions

VP and NT: conceived the idea, VP and AR: designed the project; LF, AR and EL tabulated data, VP and DH performed the statistical analysis; VP and DH assessed bias among included studies; All authors: wrote the manuscript; VP, NT and AR: supervised the project, wrote and revised the manuscript.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.