Clinicopathological and prognostic significance of SMAD4 in non-small cell lung cancer: A meta-analysis and database validation

The relationship between SMAD family member 4 (SMAD4) and the clinicopathological and prognostic significance of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients is unclear. Our aim was to investigate the association between SMAD4 expression and clinicopathological parameters and NSCLC prognosis. METHODS: We searched articles in databases from inception to July 2022 to retrieve literature related to SMAD4 expression and the clinicopathological and/or prognostic significance of NSCLC patients. Odds ratios (ORs), hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated. We evaluated the expression of SMAD4 and overall survival (OS) in NSCLC using the Kaplan–Meier plotter database. RESULTS: Eight articles with 1461 NSCLC patients were included. SMAD4 expression was related to tumor differentiation (OR = 0.359, 95% CI: 0.238–0.543, P = .000), lymph node metastasis (OR = 0.469, 95% CI: 0.04–0.725, P = .001), tumor node metastasis stage (OR = 0.238, 95% CI: 0.156–0.362, P = .000) and good OS (HR = 0.592, 95% CI: 0.332–0.853, P = .000) in NSCLC. There was no significant association between SMAD4 expression and age (OR = 0.822, 95% CI: 0.515–1.312, P = .411) or sex (OR = 1.056, 95% CI: 0.675–1.653, P = .811). Furthermore, SMAD4 expression was lower in NSCLC, and a good prognosis in NSCLC (HR = 0.6, 95% CI = 0.51–0.72, P = 4.2 e-9) was shown to correlate with higher SMAD4 expression using the Kaplan–Meier Plotter database. CONCLUSION: SMAD4 expression is lower in NSCLC and correlated with lymph node metastasis, tumor differentiation, tumor node metastasis stage and good OS for NSCLC patients.