Vimentin immunohistochemical expression as a prognostic factor in gastric cancer: A meta-analysis.

Objective: The prognostic value of vimentin expression in Gastric Cancer (GC) has been assessed for years while the results are still in dispute. Thus, we performed a meta-analysis to determine the effect of vimentin immunohistochemical (IHC) expression on the prognosis of GC.

Methods: Literature searches were performed in PubMed and Embase. The meta-analysis examined the association of vimentin IHC expression with prognosis and clinicopathological characteristics of GC patients.

Results: In total, ten studies involving 1598 cases were enrolled in this meta-analysis. Vimentin positive expression was significantly correlated with poor overall survival (OS) in GC patients (HR = 2.05, 95% CI: 1.29-3.24) but there was a significant degree of heterogeneity (I = 77%, P = 0.0006). Subgroup analysis indicated that vimentin expression had an unfavorable impact on OS in Chinese patients (HR = 2.43, 95% CI: 1.30-4.55). Moreover, vimentin positive expression rates was significantly associated with age, tumor location, TNM stage and lymph node metastasis. However, vimentin positive expression rates did not correlate with gender, grade of differentiation, vascular invasion, the depth of invasion, hepatic metastasis or peritoneal metastasis.

Conclusions: Positive vimentin expression could serve as a poor prognostic marker in GC.