Correlation Among The Expression Of CD133, CD90, And Poor Survival Outcome In Hepatocellular Carcinoma: A Meta-analysis

Background:A meta-analysis was conducted to investigate the association of overexpression of CD133 and CD90 with clinicopathological significance and prognostic importance in hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)and to estimate whether CD133 and CD90 can be identified as biomarkers for evaluating risk of HCC occurrence.Methods:Relevant articles were retrieved from PubMed,EMBASE,the Cochrane Library,and Chinese CNKI.Additional authoritative papers cited in the retrieved articles,which were published before the deadline of December 2016,were also included.Pathologic characteristics of HCC were determined using Review Manager software,version 5.2,and overall survival(OS)and disease-free survival(DFS)rates were determined with Stata statistical software,version 12.0.Results:Twenty qualified studies including 1981 patients were analyzed.Ourstudy suggests that the presence of cancer stem cells(CSCs)is meaningfully correlated with poor pathologic grading(pooled OR=2.31,95% CI: 1.87-2.85,p<0.0001)and an advanced stage of carcinoma(pooled OR=3.05,95% CI: 1.55-5.98,p=0.001).Meanwhile,both CD90 and CD133 overexpression failed to tightly associate with hepatitis,cirrhosis,a high AFP level,metastasis,or tumor number.Additionally,overexpression of CD133 was significantly correlated with worse survival outcomes,including OS(pooled HR=1.96,95% CI: 1.35–2.84,p<0.05)and DFS(pooled HR=1.89,95% CI:1.46–2.47,P<0.05).Overexpression of CD90 was also significantly associated with poor survival outcomes: OS(pooled HR=1.96,95% CI: 1.35–2.84,p<0.05)and DFS(pooled HR=1.67,95% CI:1.21–2.30,p<0.05).Conclusions:Our meta-analysis suggests that overexpression of CD133 and CD90 is significantly associated with clinicopathological features and with worse survival outcomes.CD133 and CD90 could be utilized as potential biomarkers for HCC,which might help to subgroup high-risk HCC patients characterized by earlier recurrence and poor overall survival after surgical or other treatments.