Prognostic and clinicopathological significance of glypican-3 overexpression in hepatocellular carcinoma: A meta-analysis

Table 1 Basic characteristics of the studies in the meta-analysis

Ref.	Year	Sample sizen(M/F)	Mean age (yr)	Treatment	Tumor vascular invasion (yes/no)	Tumor stage (I-II/III-IV)	Tumor differentiation (well/moderate-to-poor)	Study quality (points)	GPC3 detection method	Survival analysis	Hazard ratio	Counting method in immunohistochemistry	Cut-off level of “high” GPC3	Number of patients with “high” GPC3 (n)
Shirakawa et al[27]	2009	107 (85/22)	NR	S	47/60	NR	12/95	7/9	IHC	OS	Reported in text	Percentage of positive cells	> 10%	87
Yorita et al[29]	2010	194 (142/52)	NR	S	108/86	82/112	56/138	7/9	IHC	OS/DFS	Reported in text	Positive area score + Sp-Cm	≥ 2-point score	96
Ning et al[26]	2012	61 (55/6)	48	S	NR	45/16	NR	6/9	IHC	OS	Reported in text	Positive area score × staining intensity score	> ‘‘+” (2-point score)	32
Yu et al[30]	2012	100 (90/10)	51	S	23/77	NR	NR	6/9	IHC	DFS	Reported in text	NR	NR	NR
Wang et al[28]	2012	31 (29/2)	49	LT	16/15	12/19	6/25	6/9	IHC	DFS	Estimated	Percentage of positive cells	> 10%	21

M: Male; F: Female; NR: Not reported; S: Surgical resection; LT: Liver transplantation; IHC: Immunohistochemistry; OS: Overall survival; DFS: Disease-free survival.