Prognostic Significance of Beclin-1 Expression in Colorectal Cancer: a Meta-analysis

Objective: Beclin-1 has recently been observed as an essential marker of autophagy in several cancers. However, the prognostic role of Beclin-1 in colorectal neoplasia remains controversial. Our study aimed to evaluate the potential association between Beclin-1 expression and the outcome of colorectal cancer patients. Materials and Methods: All related studies were systematically searched in Pubmed, Embase, Springer and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure databases (CNKI), and then a meta-analysis was performed to determine the association of Beclin-1 expression with clinical outcomes. Finally, a total of 6 articles were included in our analysis. Results: Our data showed that high Beclin-1 expression in patients with CRC was associated with poor prognosis in terms of tumor distant metastasis (OR=2.090, 95% CI=1.061-4.119, p=0.033) and overall survival (RR=1.422, 95% CI=1.032-1.959, p=0.031). However, we did not found any correlation between Beclin-1 over-expression and tumor differentiation (OR=1.711, 95% CI=0.920-3.183, p=0.090). In addition, there was no evidence of publication bias as suggested by Egger's tests for tumor distant metastasis (p=1.000), differentiation (p=1.000) and OS (p=0.308). Conclusions: Our present meta-analysis indicated that elevated Beclin-1 expression iss associated with tumor metastasis and a poor prognosis in patients with CRC. Beclin-1 might serve as an efficient prognostic indicator in CRC, and could be a new molecular target in CRC therapy.