Prognostic and clinicopathological significance of systemic immune-inflammation index in upper tract urothelial carcinoma: a meta-analysis of 3911 patients

Systemic immune-inflammation index (SII), a novel prognostic indicator, is being more commonly utilized in different types of cancer. This research project involved combining information from previously published studies to examine how pre-treatment SII can predict outcomes in individuals with upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC). Further examination of the correlation between SII and clinical and pathological features in UTUC. We thoroughly chose pertinent articles from various databases including PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), WanFang database, and Chinese Scientific Journal Database (VIP) until March 10, 2022.The data collected was analyzed using Stata 17.0 software (Stat Corp, College Station, TX). Subsequently, the impact of SII on the survival outcomes of UTUC patients was evaluated by combining HRs with 95% confidence intervals. Six included studies were finally confirmed, including 3911 UTUC patients in seven cohorts. The results showed that high SII before treatment predicted poor overall survival (HR =1.87, 95%CI 1.20-2.92, p=0.005), cancer specific survival (HR=2.70, 95%CI 1.47-4.96, P=0.001), and recurrence-free survival (HR =1.52, 95%CI 1.12-2.07, P=0.007). And the elevated SII may be related to LVI (present . absent) (OR=0.83, 95% CI=0.71-0.97, p=0.018), pT stage (pT ≥3 . < 3) (OR=1.82, 95% CI=1.21-2.72, p=0.004), and pN stage (N+ . N0) (OR=3.27, 95% CI=1.60-6.71, p=0.001). A comprehensive analysis of all included articles in this study showed that higher pretreatment SII was related to poorer survival outcomes and adverse pathological features independently. https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, identifier CRD42022316333.