title: The role of HER-2/neu expression on the survival of patients with lung cancer: a systematic review of the literature.
abstract: C-erbB-2 prognostic value for survival in patients with lung cancer remains controversial. We performed a systematic review of the literature to clarify its impact. Studies were identified by an electronic search in order to aggregate the survival results, after a methodological assessment using the scale of the European Lung Cancer Working Party. To be eligible, a study had to deal with c-erbB-2 assessment in lung cancer patients and to analyse survival according to c-erbB-2 expression. In total, 30 studies were eligible: 24 studies dealt with non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), five with adenocarcinoma and one study dealt with small-cell carcinoma. In all, 31% of the patients were positive for c-erbB-2. According to c-erbB-2 expression, 13 studies were 'negative' (significant detrimental effect on survival), one 'positive' (significant survival improvement) and 16 not significant. Significant studies had a better subscore relative to analysis and results report than nonsignificant studies. In total, 86% of the significant studies and only 56% of the nonsignificant studies were evaluable for the meta-analysis. This suggests a possible bias in our aggregated results. For NSCLC, the hazard ratio was 1.55 (95% CI: 1.29-1.86) in favour of tumours that do not express c-erbB-2. In conclusion, the overexpression of c-erbB-2 might be a factor of poor prognosis for survival in NSCLC, but there is a potential bias in favour of the significant studies with an overestimation risk of the magnitude of the true effect of c-erbB-2 overexpression.
authors.affiliation: Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique, Bruxelles, Belgium. ap.meert@bordet.be
authors.forename: A-P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Meert
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Paesmans
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Berghmans
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mascaux
authors.forename: J-M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Verdebout
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Delmotte
authors.forename: J-J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Lafitte
authors.forename: J-P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Sculier
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000378:metabolism / Q000401:mortality; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000378:metabolism*; D002289:Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung / Q000378:metabolism / Q000401:mortality; D018288:Carcinoma, Small Cell / Q000378:metabolism / Q000401:mortality; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000401:mortality*; D011379:Prognosis; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases / Q000378:metabolism*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D015996:Survival Rate
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases