A Meta-Analysis of Prognostic Value of Cav-1 Expression in Gastric Cancers

Gastric cancer is one of the most common malignancies and remains the second leading cause of cancer related mortality worldwide (Li et al., 2012). Despite recent advances in medical treatment and surgical techniques, the five-year survival rate for gastric cancer patients unfortunately remains poor. Biological prognostic markers in early stages of gastric cancer would have great clinical value. Caveolin-1 (Cav-1) is mainly expressed by adipocytes, fibroblasts, and endothelial and smooth muscle cells (Scherer et al., 1997). It is involved in signal transduction and transmembrane transport processes (Anderson et al., 1992). In cancers, ambivalent roles of Cav-1 in the pathogenesis have been reported. Cav-1 down-regulation has been found in tumors such as lung, ovarian, mammary carcinomas and mesenchymal sarcomas (Wiechen et al., 2001), whereas its over-expression has been reported in cancers of the prostate, esophagus, bladder and kidney (Williams and Lisanti, 2005; Goetz et al., 2008). Cav1 amplification is frequently down-regulated in gastric cancer and is associated with better prognosis (He et al., 2012), but recently studies show that high Cav-1 levels predict poor outcome in gastric cancer (Nam et al., 2013).