The clinicopathologic impacts and prognostic significance of GLUT1 expression in patients with lung cancer: A meta-analysis

Accumulating studies have reported that GLUT1 is aberrantly expressed in lung cancer; nevertheless, the clinicopathologic significance and the prognostic role of GLUT1 still remain controversial. The aim of this meta-analysis was to identify the clinicopathologic and prognostic implications of the GLUT1 expression in lung cancer patients. Databases with literature published in English, including Cochrane Library, Embase, Web of Science, and PubMed, and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and WanFang database in Chinese were searched comprehensively for relevant studies in August 2017. The pooled odds ratio (OR) or hazard ratio (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to evaluate the clinicopathologic significance and prognostic value of GLUT1 in lung cancer. A total of 26 studies (2653 cases) were included in the current study. Totally, 1423 patients from nineteen studies were included to assess the relationships between GLUT1 and clinicopathological parameters, the pooled OR indicated that positive GLUT1 expression was significantly related with classification (adenocarcinomas vs. squamous carcinomas, OR = 0.276, 95% CIs: 0.117–0.651, P = 0.003), tumor differentiation (G3–4 vs. G2~1, OR = 1.944, 95% CIs: 1.384–2.730; P < 0.001), lymph node metastasis (positive vs. negative, OR = 3.65, 95% CIs: 1.82–7.32, P < 0.001),tumor size (large tumor size vs. small tumor size, OR = 2.03, 95% CI: 1.42–2.91, P < 0.001), and advanced tumor stages (OR = 2.527, 95% CIs: 1.325–4.820). Regarding the significance of GLUT1 in the overall survival (OS) of lung cancer, the pooled HRs with 1731 lung cancer patients was 1.41 (P = 0.002; 95% CIs: 1.13–1.76). Additionally, the overexpression of GLUT1 could significantly predict the shorter disease-free survival (HR = 1.68, 95% CIs: 1.01–2.79) and disease-specific survival (HR = 1.59, 95% CIs: 1.11–2.29). A positive expression of GLUT1 significantly predicts a poor prognosis in lung cancer patients. GLUT1 may server as a helpful biomarker and a potential target for the treatment strategies of lung cancer.