Prognostic significance of tumor length in patients with esophageal cancer undergoing radical resection: A PRISMA-compliant meta-analysis

The prognostic significance of tumor length in esophageal cancer (EC) remains controversial. Hence, we conducted a meta-analysis to quantitatively assess the prognostic significance of tumor length in EC patients. A systematic literature search was conducted in the PubMed, EMBASE, and Web of Science. Hazard ratios (HRs) with their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to assess the prognostic significance of tumor length for overall survival (OS), and disease-free survival (DFS) in EC patients. A total of 21 articles with 22 eligible studies involving 9271 patients were included in this meta-analysis. The results of our pooling analyses demonstrated that tumor length was an independent prognostic parameter for OS (HR = 1.38, 95% CI: 1.24-1.54, P