Ki-67/MKI67 as a Predictive Biomarker for Clinical Outcome in Gastric Cancer Patients: an Updated Meta-analysis and Systematic Review involving 53 Studies and 7078 Patients

Gastric cancer (GC) threatens human health worldwide and we performed this meta-analysis to evaluate the clinical value of Ki-67/MKI67 in patients with GC. The combined hazard ratio (HR), odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were calculated to assess the relationships of Ki-67/MKI67 expression with prognoses and clinicopathological characteristics. Genes co-expressed with MKI67 were collected for Gene Ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway and protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analyses. In total, 53 studies with 7078 patients were included in this study. The pooled HRs indicated that an elevated expression of Ki-67/MKI67 predicted an unfavorable overall survival (HR: 1.54, 95% CI: 1.33-1.78, P<0.0001) and disease-free survival (HR: 2.28, 95% CI: 1.43-3.64, P<0.0001) in GC patients. Additionally, in patients with advanced GC, a high Ki-67/MKI67 expression was also significantly connected with OS (HR: 1.37, 95% CI: 1.18-1.60, P<0.0001). The combined ORs showed that Ki-67/MKI67 expression was related to TNM stage (stage III/IV versus stage I/II: OR=1.93, 95% CI=1.34-2.78, P<0.0001), tumor differentiation (poor versus well/moderate: OR=1.94, 95% CI=1.32-2.85, P=0.001), lymph node metastasis (yes versus no: OR=1.67, 95% CI=1.23-2.25, P=0.001), distant metastasis (yes versus no: OR=1.67, 95% CI=1.24-2.26, P=0.001) and tumor invasion depth (T3/T4 versus T-is/T1/T2: OR=1.98, 95% CI=1.60-2.44, P<0.0001). The results of GO, KEGG pathway and PPI network analyses indicated that Ki-67/MKI67 may be involved in the development of GC via influencing P53 signaling pathway. Ki-67/MKI67 could be a potential indicator to predict the prognosis of patients with GC and identify high-risk cases. Detecting Ki-67/MKI67 expression in clinic may be helpful in optimizing individual treatment and further improving the survival expectancy of patients with GC.