The evaluation of signaling pathways and common genetic mutations in Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Esophageal cancer (EC) is responsible for about 604,100 new cases and 544,076 deaths annually worldwide, and the 9th prevalent cancer in the world. EC is the second most common cancer among men (17.6 per 100,000) and women (14.4 per 100,000). Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma (ESCC) and adenocarcinoma (EAC) are two common types of EC. The aim of this study is to evaluation of signaling pathways and common genetic mutations in Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma. Materials and Methods: In this systematic review, after determining the search keywords, both MeSH keywords and freely in the databases of Pubmed, Embase, Web of Science, Scopus, Proquest, Google Scholar, and Iranian databases were searched. Inclusion criteria were related original and review articles, without time limition and in English or Persian. The Comprehensive Meta-Analysis version 2.0 was used for analyses of data. Q statistic and I2 were used for the determination of heterogeneity. In the present meta-analysis, I2>50% and a significance level of P<0.10 for Cochran’s Q were considered clinically meaningful heterogeneity. Based on heterogeneity analysis, a fixed or random-effect model was used. Results: This systematic review and meta-analysis revealed that genetic alteration frequency assessment were conducted in 59 studies, which most of them evaluated the TP53 (n=37 studies), and PIK3CA (n=31 studies) genes mutations. However in terms of the genetic alteration frequency, TP53, CCND1, and MDM2 genes was the most prevalent mutations including 68.6%, 39.3%, and 24.9%, of genes respectively.