Survival of gastric cancer patients in Iran: a systematic review and meta-analysis

AIM: This study aimed to estimate the survival rates among Iranian gastric cancer patients and to evaluate if the survival has improved during the last three decades. BACKGROUND: Gastric cancer is one of the most common cancers in Iran with high mortality. METHODS: A systematic review and meta-analysis of all published studies addressing gastric cancer survival in Iran was performed. International databases of Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, and Iranian databases were included in the study. The study included databases from their inception till February 2022. Due to the inherent heterogeneity, we used a random effect model to pool the survivals in three categories of one, three, and five-year survivals. RESULTS: Thirty-three studies with total cases of 17,207 were included in the study. The overall (pooled) one, three, and five-year survivals were estimated as 58.9% (95% CI: 0.52, 0.66), 29.9% (95% CI: 0.25, 0.35), and 18.2% (95% CI: 0.15, 0.23), respectively. Results of subgroup analysis for the calendar years of study showed that the one, three, and five-year survival rates increased during the last three decades but the results were not statistically significant. There was the disparity in survival based on geographic distribution. CONCLUSION: The results of our study which has pooled many studies for a long period of time clearly indicate that the survival rates of gastric cancer patients have improved. As the improvement of survival may be due to many factors, more studies is needed to understand the dynamic behind this improvement.