Relationship between Expression of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor and Cervical Lymph Node Metastasis in Papillary Thyroid Cancer： A Meta-analysis

• Published in: Current medical science Vol. 37; no. 5; pp. 661 - 666
• Main Author: 黄晓庆;何文山;张惠琼;杨瑞;黄韬
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wuhan Huazhong University of Science and Technology 01.10.2017; Department of Breast and Thyroid Surgery, Union Hospital Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology,Wuhan 430022, China
• Subjects: Carcinoma, Papillary - metabolism; Female; Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; Humans; Lymphatic Metastasis; Male; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Odds Ratio; Prognosis; Thyroid Cancer, Papillary; Thyroid Neoplasms - metabolism; Up-Regulation; Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A - metabolism; meta-analysis; cervical lymph node metastasis; vascular endothelial growth factor; papillary thyroid cancer
• ISSN: 1672-0733; 2096-5230; 1993-1352; 1993-1352; 2523-899X
• DOI: 10.1007/s11596-017-1786-9

The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between the protein expression of vascular endothelial growth factor（VEGF） and lymph node metastasis（LNM） in papillary thyroid cancer（PTC）. VEGF-related articles that had been published until August 2016 were searched from the Pub Med, EMBASE, and MEDLINE to identify the risk factors of LNM in PTC. Rev Man 5.3 software was used for the meta-analysis. Finally, 9 articles met the inclusion criteria and were included in our meta-analysis. LNM was found to be present in 176 of 318 patients（57.8%） with high VEGF expression and in 71 of 159 patients（47.0%） with low VEGF expression. The overall OR was 2.81（95% confidence interval, 1.49–5.29）. LNM occurred more frequently in patients with high VEGF expression than in those with low VEGF expression（P=0.001）. Heterogeneity was markedly decreased in the subgroup analyses of LNM in terms of the patients＇ country of origin and the detection methods. Our meta-analysis concluded that the VEGF protein expression is associated with LNM in PTC.