The prognostic value of CSCs biomarker CD133 in NSCLC: a meta-analysis

The prognostic value of cancer stem cells (CSCs) marker CD133 in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains controversial. We performed this meta-analysis of 32 eligible studies to clarify the prognostic value of CD133 and provide evidence for CSCs hypothesis. We calculated pooled hazard ratio (HR) for survival outcomes and pooled odds ratio (OR) for clinical parameters associated with CD133 in total 3595 NSCLC patients by STATA. Our results showed that NSCLC patients with higher CD133 expression had shorter overall survival time only in Asian patients (HR = 3.80, 95% CI: 3.12–4.04, p < 0.001; I(2) = 32%) but not in Caucasian patients (HR = 1.15, 95% CI: 0.88–1.52, p = 0.307; I(2) = 0%), suggesting that differential prognostic value of CD133 in distinct ethnic group. We speculated that the intrinsic EGFR gene status of CSCs might be responsible for this racial difference. Additionally, we found that higher expression of CD133 was associated with poor differentiation (OR = 2.03, 95% CI: 1.32–3.14, p = 0.001) and lymph node metastasis (OR = 2.39, 95% CI: 1.62–3.52, p < 0.001) but there was no significant difference of CD133 expression between adenocarcinoma and squamous carcinoma (OR = 1.13, 95% CI: 0.93–1.38, p = 0.3) in NSCLC patients. These results may provide a new therapeutic perspective on the treatment of NSCLC patients according to the expression of CD133 in distinct ethnic group.