Association of Reduced Immunohistochemical Expression of E-cadherin with a Poor Ovarian Cancer Prognosis - Results of a Meta-analysis

Purpose: E-cadherin is a transmemberane protein which is responsible for adhesion of endothelial cells. Theaim of our study was to assess existing evidence of associations between reduced expression of E-cadherin andprognosis of ovarian cancer with a discussion of potential approaches to exploiting any prognostic value forimproved clinical management.
Methods: We conducted a meta-analysis of 9 studies (n=915 patients) focusingon the correlation of reduced expression of E-cadherin with overall survival. Data were synthesized with randomor fixed effect hazard ratios.
Results: The studies were categorized by author/year, number of patients, FIGOstage, histology, cutoff value for E-cadherin positivity, and methods of hazard rations (HR) estimation, HR andits 95% confidence interval (CI). Combined hazard ratios suggested that reduced expression of E-cadherinpositivity was associated with poor overall survival (OS), HR= 2.10, 95% CI:1.13-3.06.
Conclusion: The overallsurvival of the E-cadherin negative group with ovarian cancer was significant poorer than the E-cadherin positivegroup. Upregulation of E-cadherin is an attractive therapeutic approach that could exert significant effects onclinical outcome of ovarian cancer.