Role of AFP mRNA expression in peripheral blood as a predictor for postsurgical recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Table 1 Main characteristics of selected publications.

Author	Yr	Cut-off	Study design	Data used for meta-analysis	n	Method
Wong et al	2001	The upper limit of	Cohort	Case (D/n/D’/n’)	15	Semi-quantitativec
		normal value		(6/10, 1/5)1		RT-PCR
Minata et al	2001	Dichotomized by the	Cohort	Case (D/n/D’/n’)	26	RT-PCR
		presence of AFP mRNA		(11/11, 1/15)
Witzigmann et al	2001	Dichotomized by the	Cohort	Case (D/n/D’/n’)	31	RT-PCR
		presence of AFP mRNA		(5/15, 4/16)
Lemoine et al	1997	Dichotomized by the	Cohort	Case (D/n/D’/n’)	17	RT-PCR
		presence of AFP mRNA		(2/10, 2/7)
Okuda et al	2001	Dichotomized by the	Cohort	Case (D/n/D’/n’)	25	RT-PCR
		presence of AFP mRNA		(6/12, 2/13)
Ijichi et al	2002	Dichotomized by the	Cohort	P value (0.014)	87	RT-PCR
		presence of AFP mRNA
I-Shyan et al	2004	Dichotomized by the	Cohort	Case (D/n/D’/n’)	81	RT-PCR
		presence of AFP mRNA		(17/19, 19/62)
Funaki et al	1997	Dichotomized by the	Case-control	Case (D/n/D’/n’)	14	RT-PCR
		presence of recurrence		(11/11, 2/3)2
Liu et al	1999	Dichotomized by the	Case-control	Case (D/n/D’/n’)	72	RT-PCR
		presence of recurrence		(7/19, 2/53)

¹The patients who received operation only were enrolled in the study.

²Prospective survival observation was also performed on eight cases of HCC who were operated on during this study, but as AFP mRNA was tested 2-3 d after operation, these eight cases were excluded.

Table 2 Aggregation of six cohort studies by Pote’s fix-effect model.

Author	O	E	O-E	V(O-E)	(O-E)/V	Z	P
Wong	6	4.67	1.33	1.60	1.11	1.05	0.146
Minata	11	5.10	5.90	1.66	21.10	4.58	0.000
Witzigmann	5	4.35	0.65	2.68	0.16	0.39	0.347
Lemoine	2	2.35	-0.35	1.69	0.07	-0.27	0.607
Okuda	6	3.84	2.16	2.07	2.26	1.50	0.067
I-Shyan	17	8.44	8.56	3.75	19.50	4.42	0.000
Aggregation			18.24	13.44	43.95	11.68

Table 3 Aggregation of six cohort studies by D & L random-effects model.

Author	RRi P1’/P0’	Yi Ln (RRi)	Wi 1/Vi	Ywi Wi × yi/V	Wi’ 1/(D+1/Wi)	Ywi Wi’ × yi/W’
Wong	6.000	1.792	3.650	0.455	0.207	0.369
Minata	1 694.000	7.435	1.162	0.278	0.284	0.902
Witzigmann	1.500	0.406	3.667	0.048	0.341	0.059
Lemoine	0.625	-0.470	2.300	-0.035	0.323	-0.065
Okuda	5.500	1.705	3.591	0.197	0.340	0.248
I-Shyan	19.237	2.957	1.865	0.340	0.219	0.481
Aggregation		13.8236	16.2345	1.677	1.343	2.208

Table 4 Conversion of statistical index of the nine selected studies.

Authors	P	Z	t	D	r	χ2	F
Ijichi	0.014	2.197	2.236	0.485	0.236	4.828	5.000
Wong	0.146	1.054	1.098	0.609	0.291	1.110	1.215
Minata	0.000	4.580	5.357	2.143	0.731	20.976	29.248
Witzigmann	0.347	0.394	0.398	0.148	0.074	0.155	0.159
Lemoine	0.393	-0.272	-0.277	-0.143	-0.071	0.074	0.077
Okudal	0.067	1.499	1.554	0.648	0.308	2.248	2.423
I-Shyan	0.000	4.420	4.460	1.004	0.449	19.536	19.927
Liu and Funki1	0.000	5.354	5.338	1.165	0.503	28.665	28.546

¹Liu and Funki’s study were combined into a single study.