Open AccessPrognostic value of C-reactive protein levels in patients with bone neoplasms: A meta-analysis
Author(s) -
Wenyi Li,
Xujun Luo,
Zhongyue Liu,
Yanqiao Chen,
Zhihong Li
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0195769
Subject(s) - medicine , meta analysis , hazard ratio , cochrane library , confidence interval , c reactive protein , bone metastasis , oncology , cancer , metastasis , inflammation
Objective The aim of this study was to conduct a meta-analysis of retrospective studies that investigated the association of preoperative C-reactive protein (CRP) levels with the overall survival (OS) of patients with bone neoplasms. Methods A detailed literature search was performed in the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Embase and PubMed databases up to August 28, 2017, for related research publications written in English. We extracted the data from these studies and combined the hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to assess the correlation between CRP levels and OS in patients with bone neoplasms. Results Five studies with a total of 816 participants from several countries were enrolled in this current meta-analysis. In a pooled analysis of all the publications, increased serum CRP levels had an adverse prognostic effect on the overall survival of patients with bone neoplasms. However, the combined data showed no significant relationship between the level of CRP and OS in Asian patients (HR = 1.73; 95% CI: 0.86–3.49; P = 0.125). Similar trends were observed in patients with bone neoplasms when stratified by ethnicity, histology, metastasis and study sample size. Conclusions The results of this meta-analysis suggest that increased CRP expression indicates a poorer prognosis in patients with bone neoplasms. More prospective studies are needed to confirm the prognostic significance of CRP levels in patients with bone neoplasms.