Meta-Analysis
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Nov 26, 2022; 10(33): 12230-12239
Published online Nov 26, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i33.12230
Prognostic role of pretreatment serum ferritin concentration in lung cancer patients: A meta-analysis
Yang Gao, Jin-Tong Ge
Yang Gao, Jin-Tong Ge, Department of Cardiology Surgery, The Affiliated Huaian No. 1 People’s Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Huaian 223001, Jiangsu Province, China
Author contributions: Ge JT made the substantial contributions to the conception and design of the work; Gao Y and Ge JT searched, selected materials and extracted data; Gao Y wrote this manuscript; Gao Y and Ge JT revised the paper carefully and also contributed to the statistical analysis; All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors declare that there are no competing interests associated with this manuscript.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: This meta-analysis was performed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA 2009) checklist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Jin-Tong Ge, MD, Professor, Department of Cardiology Surgery, The Affiliated Huaian No. 1 People’s Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, No. 1 Yellow River West Road, Huaian 223001, Jiangsu Province, China. 15851861990@163.com
Received: August 23, 2022
Peer-review started: August 23, 2022
First decision: October 17, 2022
Revised: October 19, 2022
Accepted: October 24, 2022
Article in press: October 24, 2022
Published online: November 26, 2022
Processing time: 92 Days and 6.7 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

The association between pretreatment serum ferritin concentration (SFC) and long-term survival in lung cancer remains unclear now.

AIM

To identify the prognostic value of pretreatment SFC in lung cancer patients based on current evidence.

METHODS

The PubMed, EMBASE and Web of Science databases were searched from inception to May 29, 2022 for relevant studies. The primary endpoint was overall survival (OS) and the hazard ratios (HRs) with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were combined to assess the predictive role of pretreatment SFC for long-term survival of lung cancer patients. The data were then extracted and assessed on the basis of the Reference Citation Analysis (https://www.referencecitationanalysis.com/).

RESULTS

Twelve retrospective studies involving 1654 patients were analyzed. The results manifested that increased pretreatment SFC was associated with worse OS (HR = 1.09, 95%CI: 1.03-1.15, P = 0.004). Subgroup analysis stratified by the country (China vs non-China) showed similar results. However, subgroup analysis stratified by tumor type revealed inconsistent results (lung cancer: HR = 1.39, P = 0.008; small cell lung cancer: HR = 1.99, P = 0.175; non-small cell lung cancer: HR = 1.03, P = 0.281).

CONCLUSION

Pretreatment SFC might serve as a promising prognostic indicator in lung cancer patients and elevated pretreatment SFC predicts worse prognosis. However, more high-quality studies with big sample sizes are still needed to further verify its prognostic value in lung cancer.

Keywords: Serum ferritin concentration; Prognosis; Lung cancer; Meta-analysis

Core Tip: Our results manifested that increased pretreatment serum ferritin concentration (SFC) was significantly associated with worse overall survival (P = 0.004). Subgroup analysis based on the country (China vs non-China) showed similar results. However, subgroup analysis stratified by tumor type revealed inconsistent results (lung cancer: HR = 1.39, P = 0.008; small cell lung cancer: HR = 1.99, P = 0.175; non-small cell lung cancer: HR = 1.03, P = 0.281). Pretreatment SFC might serve as a promising prognostic indicator in lung cancer patients and elevated pretreatment SFC predicts worse prognosis. However, more high-quality studies with big sample sizes are still needed to further verify its prognostic value in lung cancer.