SynthesisFrontiers in oncology2023
Clinicopathological and prognostic value of epithelial cell adhesion molecule in solid tumours: a meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Frontiers in oncology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 5 citations in OpenAlex.
- A core stemness-associated module reveals PLK1, NUF2, KIF23, CDCA8, TOP2A, CENPF, AURKA, and ASPM as key genes in rectal cancer.European journal of medical research · 2025Article
- Challenges and perspectives of CAR-T cell therapy in solid tumours: insights from gastric cancer.British journal of cancer · 2025Review
- Future theranostic strategies: emerging ovarian cancer biomarkers to bridge the gap between diagnosis and treatment.Frontiers in drug delivery · 2024Review
- Hypoxia-driven mobilization of altruistic cancer stem cells in platinum-treated head and neck cancer.Frontiers in immunology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Malignant tumors, mainly solid tumors, are a significant obstacle to the improvement of life expectancy at present. Epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM), a cancer stem cell biomarker, showed widespread expression in most normal epithelial cells and most cancers. Although the clinical significance of EpCAM in various malignant solid tumors has been studied extensively, the latent relationships between EpCAM and pathological and clinical characteristics in solid tumors and differences in the roles of EpCAM among tumors have not been clearly determined. The destination point of this study was to analyze the value of EpCAM in solid tumors in clinicopathological and prognostic dimension using a meta-analysis approach. Method and materials: A comprehensive and systematic search of the researches published up to March 7th, 2022, in PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, Cochrane library and PMC databases was performed. The relationships between EpCAM overexpression, clinicopathological characteristics, and survival outcomes were analyzed. Pooled hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and odds ratios (ORs) were estimated as indicators of the degree of correlation. This research was registered on PROSPERO (International prospective register of systematic reviews), ID: CRD42022315070. Results: In total, 57 articles and 14184 cases were included in this study. High EpCAM expression had a significant coherence with a poorer overall survival (OS) (HR: 1.30, 95% CI: 1.08-1.58, P < 0.01) and a worse disease-free survival (DFS) (HR: 1.58, 95% CI: 1.28-1.95, P < 0.01), especially of gastrointestinal tumors' OS (HR: 1.50, 95% CI: 1.15-1.95, P < 0.01), and DFS (HR: 1.84, 95% CI: 1.52-2.33, P < 0.01). The DFS of head and neck tumors (HR: 2.33, 95% CI: 1.51-3.61, P < 0.01) was also associated with the overexpression of EpCAM. There were no positive relationships between the overexpression of EpCAM and sex (RR: 1.03, 95% CI: 0.99-1.07, P = 0.141), T classification (RR: 0.93, 95% CI: 0.82-1.06, P = 0.293), lymph node metastasis (RR: 0.85, 95% CI: 0.54-1.32, P = 0.461), distant metastasis (RR: 0.97, 95% CI: 0.84-1.10, P = 0.606), vascular infiltration (RR: 1.05, 95% CI: 0.85-1.29, P = 0.611), and TNM stage (RR: 0.93, 95% CI: 0.83-1.04, P = 0.187). However, the overexpression of EpCAM exhibited a significant association with the histological grades (RR: 0.88, 95% CI: 0.80-0.97, P < 0.01). Conclusion: Based on pooled HRs, the positive expression of EpCAM was totally correlated to a worse OS and DFS in solid tumors. The expression of EpCAM was related to a worse OS in gastrointestinal tumors and a worse DFS in gastrointestinal tumors and head and neck tumors. Moreover, EpCAM expression was correlated with the histological grade. The results presented pointed out that EpCAM could serve as a prognostic biomarker for gastrointestinal and head and neck tumors. Systematic review registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero, identifier CRD42022315070.
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