title: The Relationship between Telomerase Activity and Clinicopathological Parameters in Colorectal Cancer: A Meta-Analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Recently, accumulated research has found that the expression of telomerase activity (TA) was associated with colorectal cancer (CRC) advancement, whereas the TA prognostic effect in CRC patients is still controversial.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To investigate relationships between TA and CRC clinicopathological parameters.
  
  
  METHODS
  Meta-analysis study.
  
  
  METHODS
  We searched published studies in databases, such as EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, PubMed, and Ovid databases (last search updated to October 2014) by meeting specified search criteria. The quality of the included studies was usually evaluated and a meta-analysis was implemented by Stata 12.0 software. We used an odds ratio (OR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI) to evaluate relationship strengths between TA and CRC clinicopathological parameters.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In total, 11 studies (715 patients) were included to assess the relation between TA and metastasis-related parameters in CRC patients. The results indicate that a senior TA expression was connected with the existence of lymph node metastasis (180 patients; OR=2.85, 95% CI=1.40-5.81, p=0.004), and tumor site (522 patients; OR=2.93, 95% CI=1.29-6.67, p=0.010). However, a senior TA expression was not connected with tumor size (137 patients; OR=1.57, 95% CI=0.71-3.47, p=0.267), histological differentiation (570 patients; OR=1.28, 95% CI=0.78-2.09, p=0.332), depth of invasion (57 patients; OR=3.76, 95% CI=0.61-23.04, p=0.152), distant metastasis (123 patients; OR=1.76, 95% CI=0.54-5.74, p=0.346), and clinical stage of the cancer (543 patients; OR=1.59, 95% CI=0.74-3.38, p=0.232).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This meta-analysis suggests that a positive TA was correlated with lymph node metastasis progression and tumor site of the CRC but did not correlate with other important clinicopathological parameters. TA can play a useful part in the prognosis and treatment of CRC patients, but further studies are required to confirm this.
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Tumor Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, China.
authors.forename: Xue-Cheng
authors.initials: XC
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Department of Endoscopy Center, Tumor Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, China.
authors.forename: Lian-Ying
authors.initials: LY
authors.lastname: Ge
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Tumor Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, China.
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Tumor Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, China.
authors.forename: Hai
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Qiu
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Tumor Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, China.
authors.forename: Fan
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Tumor Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, China.
authors.forename: Yu-Zhou
authors.initials: YZ
authors.lastname: Qin
keywords: Colorectal neoplasms; meta-analysis; prognosis; telomerase