title: WNT5A Correlates with Clinicopathological Characteristics in Gastric Cancer: a Meta-Analysis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Gastric cancer (GC), the third-leading cause of cancer death in the world, is typically diagnosed only in its advanced stages. WNT signaling has been associated with clinicopathological characteristics in diverse cancer types. But the systematic analysis of WNT5A, a member in the signaling, has not been inspected. Thus, our study used a meta-analysis to statistically associate WNT5A expression with GC clinicopathological characteristics.
  
  
  METHODS
  For a systematic literature review of GC in combination with the WNT signaling molecule WNT5A, we searched for PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science. It led to the five cohorts, in four eligible studies, consisting of 1,034 patients (617 WNT5A-positive and 417 WNT5A-negative patients). These patients were inspected by the library "meta" in R software for our meta-analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Our meta-analysis, revealed a statistically significant associations of WNT5A-positivity with lymph node metastasis (p=0.0047), some types of Lauren diffuse subtype GCs (p<0.0001), advanced tumor depth (p<0.0001), and advanced UICC stages (p=0.0461) with no observation of bias or confounding factors.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results support the feasibility of targeting this embryonic signaling pathway, both for therapy, and as a biomarker to "guide" various individual interventions (i.e., "personalized medicine").
authors.forename: Seungyoon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nam
authors.forename: Jun-Won
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.forename: Jun-Young
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D016208:Databases, Factual; D006801:Humans; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D015398:Signal Transduction; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D000071818:Wnt-5a Protein / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: C085389:WNT5A protein, human; D000071818:Wnt-5a Protein
keywords: Gastric cancer; Lymph node metastasis; Meta-analysis; WNT5A