Prognostic Role Of Smad4 Expressionin Gastric Cancer:A Meta-analysis

Smad4 is located on chromosome 18q21 and acts as a central mediator in TGF-? superfamily signaling to inhibit relevant tumor development and progression.However,the prognostic role of Smad4 in gastric cancer(GC)was still controversial.Our aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the potential association between Smad4 expression and clinicopathological differences in GC patients.A total of 6 studies with 1021 GC patients up to April 2016 were included in this study.Our data demonstrated that Smad4 expression did not related to the gender(pooled OR=0.812,95% CI=0.381-1.732,P=0.591,random effect),Lauren histology(pooled OR=1.015,95% CI=0.221-4.659,P=0.985,random effect)and tumor differentiation(pooled OR=0.709,95% CI=0.403-1.248,P=0.233,random effect)of GC patients.But reduced Smad4 was significantly associated with the lymph node metastases(pooled OR=0.580,95% CI=0.339-0.990,P=0.046,random effect)and TNM stage(pooled OR=0.645,95%CI=0.426-0.977,P=0.039,fixed effect).These results strongly suggested that Smad4 might serve as a novel biomarker for prognostic indicator,and could be a potential therapy for diagnosis and treatment in GC.