Aim: This meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate the diagnostic and prognostic functions of E-cadherin expression in cervical cancer.
Methods: PubMed and other databases were searched for articles associated with E-cadherin and cervical cancer. These articles were published before June 2015 and written in English or Chinese. Random-effects model was used to pool odds ratios on the heterogeneity test in the meta-analysis.
Results: All of 20 studies were analyzed, in which 522 (42.6%) subjects exhibited reduced E-cadherin expression. Evaluation of clinicopathologic features showed that the downregulation of E-cadherin was related to the overall survival, clinicopathological parameters and age.
Conclusion: Downregulation of E-cadherin in cervical cancer patients showed poor overall survival. Therefore, E-cadherinmay be a metastasis-suppressor gene in cervical cancer.
Keywords: E-cadherin; biomarker; cervical cancer; meta-analysis; prognosis.