Prognostic significance of KLF4 in solid tumours: an updated meta-analysis.

Background: Kruppel-like factor 4 (KLF4) is a zinc finger-containing transcription factor predominantly expressed in terminally differentiated epithelial tissues. Many studies have shown that KLF4 has various mechanisms in different tumours; however, the prognostic role of KLF4 remains unclear.

Methods And Results: We searched the relevant literature that evaluated the prognostic value of KLF4 in different cancers, and the original survival data were obtained from the text, tables or Kaplan-Meier curves for both comparative groups. Thirty studies were included in this meta-analysis, and a total of 10 malignant tumours were involved. The expression of KLF4 was not associated with the prognosis for overall survival (hazard ratio(HR)0.86, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.65-1.13, P = 0.28), disease-free survival/recurrence-free survival/metastasis-free survival (HR 0.87, 95% CI: 0.52-1.44, P = 0.58) or disease-specific survival (HR 1.13, 95% CI: 0.44-2.87, P = 0.8).

Conclusion: This study showed that the expression of KLF4 was not related to the prognosis of the tumours that were included in the study.