Evaluation of Ki67 expression as a diagnostic and prognostic marker in oral melanoma: A systematic review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Introduction. Ki-67 is one of the new biological markers that can have clinical value in the pathology and prognosis of oral melanoma. It is a nuclear protein involved in regulating cell proliferation. Some studies have suggested an association between Ki-67 and poor survival in patients with oral melanoma. To clarify this issue, we have systematically reviewed the articles. Methods.PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science databases were searched using relevant English keywords (Oral melanoma, Ki67, Diagnosis , Prognosis) from 1980 to April 2022. The quality of the study reports was independently assessed by two researchers according to the STROBE checklist. STATA version 16 software and random model were used for meta-analysis. Results. A total of 11 articles were included in this systematic review, of which 6 articles were selected for meta-analysis. The mean expression of the ki-67 index in patients with oral melanoma was estimated to be 43.81% [28.66 - 58.95 with 95 CI, I2 = 94.2, P.value<0.001]. Also, the results show that there is a significant relationship between Ki-67 expression and the prognosis of oral melanoma lesions. As the expression of this marker increases, the prognosis weakens, and the survival rate decreases. Conclusions. High expression of Ki-67 may act as a predictive biomarker for poor prognosis in patients with malignant oral melanoma. The classification of this malignancy by Ki-67 expression may be considered for therapy regimen selection and integrated management.