[The clinicopathological associations between TGF-β1 and papillary thyroid carcinoma: a Meta-analysis.]

Objective: To comprehensively evaluate the association between the positive expression rate of transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-β1) and papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) by using Meta-analysis. Method: Search the CNKI, Wan fang, VIP and PubMed database for accumulating papers studying on the relationship between the positive expression of TGF-β1 and PTC in Chinese and English. Revman 5.3 was used to analyze the included trials. Result: A total of 6 studies comprising 617 samples was included in the meta-analysis. The TGF-β1 were found in 243 patients (64.63%) of 376 PTC patients, and the total positive expression rate is 46.19%. Performing the subgroup analysis according to age, gender, lymphatic metastasis and TNM, the results showed that there was a significant association between the positive expression rate of TGF-β1 and lymphatic metastasis ( OR =5.44, 95% CI 3.31-8.93, P <0.000 01). Conclusion: This meta-analysis confirmed significant associations between the expression of TGF-β1 and PTC with lymph node metastasis. TGF-β1 may be used as a predictive factor for prognosis of PTC with lymph node metastasis.