Prognostic Value of Soluble Suppression of Tumorigenicity 2 in Chronic Kidney Disease Patients: A Meta-Analysis

OBJECTIVE: Previous studies have controversial results about the prognostic role of soluble suppression of tumorigenicity 2 (sST2) in chronic kidney disease (CKD). Therefore, we conduct this meta-analysis to access the association between sST2 and all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality, and CVD events in patients with CKD. METHODS: The publication studies on the association of sST2 with all-cause mortality, CVD mortality, and CVD events from PubMed and Embase were searched through August 2020. We pooled the hazard ratio (HR) comparing high versus low levels of sST2 and subgroup analysis based on treatment, continent, and diabetes mellitus (DM) proportion, and sample size was also performed. RESULTS: There were 15 eligible studies with 11,063 CKD patients that were included in our meta-analysis. Elevated level of sST2 was associated with increased risk of all-cause mortality (HR 2.05; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.51–2.78), CVD mortality (HR 1.68; 95% CI, 1.35–2.09), total CVD events (HR 1.88; 95% CI, 1.26–2.80), and HF (HR 1.35; 95% CI, 1.11–1.64). Subgroup analysis based on continent, DM percentage, and sample size showed that these factors did not influence the prognostic role of sST2 levels to all-cause mortality. CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that high levels of sST2 could predict the all-cause mortality, CVD mortality, and CVD events in CKD patients.