The prognostic value of over-expressed TrkB in solid tumors: a systematic review and meta-analysis

// Chunze Zhang 1, 2, * , Xiaoting Li 1, * , Dan Gao 3, * , Haihua Ruan 4, * , Zhenzhen Lin 1 , Xiaobo Li 1 , Guang Liu 2 , Zhicheng Ma 5 and Xichuan Li 1 1 Department of Immunology, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China 2 Tianjin Union Medical Center, Tianjin, China 3 Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States 4 Tianjin Key Laboratory of Food Science and Biotechnology, College of Biotechnology and Food Science, Tianjin University of Commerce, Tianjin, China 5 Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Tianjin First Center Hospital, Tianjin, China * These authors contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Xichuan Li, email: xichuanli@tmu.edu.cn Keywords: solid tumors, anoikis, TrkB, prognosis, meta-analysis Received: April 25, 2017      Accepted: July 11, 2017      Published: July 25, 2017 ABSTRACT It is reported recently Tropomyosin-related receptor Kinase B (TrkB) plays key roles in the anoikis resistance during the processes of tumorigenesis and metastasis. However, its prognostic significance for clinical patients remains inconclusive. In order to establish a correct and practicable link between increased TrkB and prognostication of human solid tumors, a meta-analysis was performed in this article. A systematic literature research in the electronic databases PubMed, Embase and Web of Science was performed to identify eligible studies. A fixed-effects meta-analytical model was employed to correlate TrkB expression with OS, DFS and clinicopathological features. A total of 11 studies covering 1516 patients with various solid tumors were recruited in this meta-analysis. TrkB over-expression was associated with poorer OS and poorer DFS in multivariate analysis. Additionally, the pooled odds ratios (ORs) indicated that TrkB over-expression was associated with large tumor size, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis and a higher clinical stage. Overall, these results indicated that TrkB over-expression in patients with solid tumors might be related to poor prognosis and serve as a potential predictive marker of poor clinicopathological prognosis factor.