Hypertension as a prognostic factor in metastatic renal cell carcinoma treated with tyrosine kinase inhibitors: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Conflicting evidence exists regarding the effect of hypertension on the prognosis of metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) patients treated with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). This study aimed to assess the predictive value of TKIs-induced hypertension in patients with mRCC. METHODS: This study was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42019129593). PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and the Cochrane Library database were searched with terms: “renal cell carcinoma”, “hypertension”, “blood pressure”, “tyrosine kinase inhibitor”, “sunitinib”, “axitinib”, “sorafenib” and “pazopanib” until March 21, 2019. Hazard Ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for progression-free survival (PFS) or overall survival (OS) were extracted and analyzed with Stata 15.0 software. Heterogeneity was assessed using the I(2) value. Meta-regression, subgroup analysis and sensitivity analysis were also performed to explore heterogeneity. Publication bias was assessed with funnel plots and precisely assessed by Egger’s and Begg’s tests. The quality of evidence of outcomes was generated according to the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE). RESULTS: A total of 4661 patients from 22 studies were included in the study. The results showed that the increase of blood pressure was an effective predictor for longer PFS (HR = 0.59, 95% CI: 0.48–0.71, p < 0.001; I(2) = 77.3%) and OS (HR = 0.57, 95% CI: 0.45–0.70, p < 0.001; I(2) = 77.4%) of patients with mRCC. Subgroup analysis revealed that patients receiving sunitinib and pazopanib could have longer PFS and OS. CONCLUSIONS: This study indicated that TKIs-induced hypertension may be a good predictor for better prognosis of patients with mRCC receiving TKIs treatment, especially using sunitinib or pazopanib. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12894-019-0481-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.