The relationship between hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) and patient survival in breast cancer: Systematic review and meta-analysis.

Abstract

Hypoxia is a characteristic of many solid tumours and results in an increase in expression of HIF-1α. Many studies have investigated the prognostic value of HIF-1α expression in breast cancer (BC), however, the prognostic value remains unclear. Therefore, a systematic review and meta-analysis was undertaken to determine the prognostic value of HIF-1α in BC patients. The electronic databases PubMed and Web of science were systematically searched to identify relevant papers. The clinical outcomes included disease-free survival (DFS), recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS) in BC patients. Review Manager version 5.4 was employed to analysis data from 30 eligible studies (containing 6201patients). High expression of HIF-1α was associated with poorer DFS and OS. There was an effect of survival analysis, study region, antibodies used, scoring and threshold methods on HIF-1α expression. HIF-1α overexpression was significantly associated with poorer DFS and OS in breast cancer patients.