Hepatocyte growth factor is a prognostic marker in patients with colorectal cancer: a meta-analysis

Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) is a crucial factor associated with development, progression and metastasis of colorectal cancer (CRC). However, its prognostic value remains unclear. Thus studies referring to the correlation between HGF and CRC patients’ prognosis were included to explore the role of HGF in CRC. At last nine articles were included. The results showed that the over-expression of HGF was associated with a poor prognosis, presented through overall survival (OS, Hazard ratio (HR) = 2.50, 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.12–2.96) and disease-free survival (DFS, HR = 1.99, 95% CI: 1.59–2.50). Subgroup analysis indicated that no significant difference was found between the Asian countries (OS: HR = 2.37; DFS: HR = 2.02) and the non-Asian countries (OS: HR = 3.15; DFS: HR = 1.87), between the studies that used univariate analyses (OS: HR = 2.51; DFS: HR = 2.07) and those that used multivariate analyses (OS: HR = 2.65; DFS: HR = 1.78), and between metastatic CRC (OS: HR = 2.26; DFS: HR = 2.06) and stage I-IV CRC (OS: HR = 3.08; DFS: HR = 0.70). Our meta-analysis has shown that the over-expression of HGF is valuable in CRC prognosis evaluation. This conclusion should be further confirmed by large-sample cohort studies.