Prognostic significance of several biomarkers in epithelial ovarian cancer: a meta-analysis of published studies

Objective Abnormal expression of several biomarkers might predict disease prognosis and response to chemotherapy in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). However, the published data are inconsistent. Methods Eligible studies that investigated the association between survival or response to platinum-based chemotherapy in EOC and the expression status of Bcl-2, EGFR, GST, LRP, p16, p21, P-gp and TNF-α were identified by an electronic search of PubMed and Embase. The measures of interest were hazard ratio (HR) for survival or risk ratio for chemotherapy response. A meta-analysis was performed using the fixed-effect or random-effect models. Results The number of eligible studies analyzed was 27 for Bcl-2, 22 for EGFR, 29 for GST, 12 for LRP, 16 for p16, 22 for p21, 27 for P-gp and three for TNF-α. A meta-analysis showed that high EGFR and P-gp expression was associated with poor overall survival (OS) (pooled adjusted HR = 1.826 and HR = 1.822). Only high GST expression was associated with improved OS (HR = 0.780). Furthermore, high p16 and P-gp expression was associated with poor progression-free survival (PFS) (HR = 1.550 and HR = 2.136). High GST expression was associated with improved PFS (HR = 0.689). Among these factors, only LRP, P-gp and TNF-α were associated with response to platinum-based chemotherapy. Conclusions The markers we analyzed are unlikely to be useful as predictors of prognosis and response to platinum-based chemotherapy in EOC patients in clinical practice.