Prognostic and clinicopathological significance of ubiquitin-specific protease 22 overexpression in cancers: evidence from a meta-analysis.

Purpose: This meta-analysis study aimed to reveal the prognostic relevance of ubiquitin-specific protease 22 (USP22) expression in patients with cancers.

Methods: PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library electronic databases were searched for relevant studies published up to April 2017. The prognostic value of USP22 expression was evaluated by hazard ratio with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Relative risk (RR) with 95% CIs assessed the effects of USP22 expression on clinicopathological parameters. A total of 16 studies of 2,233 Chinese patients were included in the final meta-analysis.

Results: A significant association was found between USP22 overexpression and survival in patients with cancers. The pooled RR indicated that USP22 overexpression was related to histological grade, advanced tumor-node-metastasis stage, positive lymph node metastasis, and distant metastasis.

Conclusion: This meta-analysis demonstrated that USP22 could be a novel biomarker for predicting prognosis in patients with cancers in the Chinese population.