Background and Aims MET the hepatocyte growth factor receptor is a receptor tyrosine kinase overexpressed and activated in a subset of gastric cancer. that explored the association between MET amplification and expression with survival in patients with gastric cancer up to at least one 1 April 2013 Data of individual hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for meta-analyses were extracted from the publications and combined in pooled HRs. Results Fourteen studies involving 2 258 patients with gastric cancer were included. It had been suggested that MET overexpression had an unfavorable effect on survival of patients with gastric cancer with HRs (95% CIs) of 2.57 (95% CI: 1.97-3.35) overall 2.82 (95% CI: 1.86-4.27) among studies using amplification for measure scale of MET and 2.42 (95% CI: 1.66-3.54) for expression. The magnitude of association was reduced whereas remained statistically significant in top quality studies or in larger sample size studies and corresponding HRs were 2.18(1.76 2.7 and 2.35(1.93 2.87 without significant heterogeneity respectively. Conclusion The findings from present study indicated that higher MET gene amplification and expression in gastric cancer was an indicator of poor prognosis. Introduction Every year it’s estimated that nearly one million new cases and over 700 0 deaths from stomach cancer occurred accounting for 8% of the full total cancer cases and 10% of total cancer deaths [1]. Although the incidence of gastric cancer has decreased substantially over the recent AT7867 few decades generally in most elements of the world nonetheless it is still perhaps one of the most common cancer types worldwide [2]. Furthermore overall survival remains poor specifically for advanced gastric cancer no established global standard for treatment has been set. Discovering new therapies which target specific genetic alterations provide a Rabbit polyclonal to EPHA7. more personalized treatment for gastric cancer [3] arguably. The discovery of molecular biological prognostic factors could give a more accurate prediction of clinical outcome and could also reveal novel predictive factors and therapeutic targets [4]. The most regularly studied putative molecular biological prognostic factors in gastric cancer are human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2/neu) epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR) cyclooxygenase 2 hepatocyte growth factor receptor (HGFR/MET) and etc. Trastuzumab a monoclonal antibody targeting HER2 has been AT7867 successfully approved as the first molecularly targeted drug against AT7867 patients with HER2 positive gastric cancer [5]. MET is a proto-oncogene that encodes a protein known as HGFR also. The MET tyrosine kinase receptor promotes tissue remodeling which underlies developmental morphogenesis wound repair organ homeostasis and cancer metastasis by integrating growth survival and migration cues in response to environmental stimuli or cell-autonomous perturbations [6]. Moreover MET has been indicated as an attractive target for cancer therapy. Agents targeting MET pathway such as for example inhibitors or monoclonal antibody have already been introduced in to the clinical application [7]. Many retrospective studies have evaluated whether overexpression of MET is a prognostic factor for survival in patients with gastric cancer. The results of these studies are AT7867 inconclusive However. Therefore a systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to measure the prognostic value of MET overexpression on survival in patients with gastric cancer. Materials and Methods Search strategy and selection criteria A systematic overview of published work was conducted based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses guidelines [8]. Electronic searches was performed of the English-language literatures on MET expression and amplification of gastric cancer in PubMed EMBASE and The Cochrane Library using the combined text words “stomach neoplasms” and proto-oncogene proteins MET or MET or Hepatocyte growth factor receptor AT7867 or HGF Receptor or Scatter factor Receptor or Proto-Oncogene proteins met. April 2012 We also manually screened the reference lists of the The latest search was undertaken in 1.