Prognostic and clinicopathological value of CD90 expression in cancer patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Recent studies have shown that CD90 has an important role in cancer development. Moreover, CD90 is reportedly associated with cancer progression, metastasis, and poor prognosis. Thus, we performed this meta-analysis to investigate the prognostic and clinicopathological value of CD90 expression in patients with cancer. METHODS: Eligible studies were collected by searching PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane library. The pooled results were analyzed to reveal the association between CD90 expression and survival as well as the clinicopathological characteristics of cancer patients. RESULTS: CD90 overexpression was associated with poor survival in cancer patients [for overall survival, hazard ratio (HR): 2.56, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.42–4.62, P=0.002; for disease-free survival, HR: 1.88, 95% CI: 1.08–3.27, P=0.025] and was also significantly correlated with a larger tumor size [odds ratio (OR): 1.97, 95% CI: 1.01–3.85, P=0.048), higher tumor grade (OR: 2.72, 95% CI: 1.33–5.54, P=0.006), lymph node metastasis (OR: 3.66, 95% CI: 1.14–11.78, P=0.029), and higher tumor-node-metastasis stage (OR: 4.79, 95% CI: 2.28–10.04, P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: CD90 overexpression could predict poor prognosis and may hence be a potential prognostic biomarker for cancer patients.