Prognostic value of glucose transporter-1 expression in oral squamous cell carcinoma: a PRISMA-compliant meta-analysis

Background: A variety of studies have evaluated the correlation between glucose transporter-1 (GLUT-1) expression and prognosis of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), however, the results were inconsistent and inconclusive. A meta-analysis was performed to assess the prognostic significance of GLUT-1 in OSCC. Methods: Electronic databases of PubMed, EMBASE and Web of Science were searched for relevant studies till July 2016. Odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were pooled to evaluated the relationship between GLUT-1 and clinical features and hazards ratio (HR) and 95% CI were combined to measure the effect of GLUT-1 on overall survival (OS). Meta-analysis was carried out using STATA version 12.0. Results: A total of 13 studies with 1301 subjects were included for meta-analysis. The pooled data showed that high GLUT-1 expression was associated with advanced tumour stages (n = 7; OR = 2.99; 95% CI, 2.01–4.46; P < 0.001), higher tumour grade (n = 5; OR = 3.34; 95% CI, 1.12–9.94; P = 0.031), tumour size (n = 5; OR = 3.36; 95% CI, 2.04–5.51; P < 0.001), lymph node metastasis (n = 5; OR = 3.15; 95% CI, 1.89–5.25; P < 0.001), tobacco use (n = 3; OR = 2.18; 95% CI, 1.18–4.01; P = 0.013) and distant metastasis (n = 2; OR = 3.06; 95% CI, 1.19–7.9; P = 0.02). Furthermore, increased GLUT-1 expression was also correlated with shorter OS (n = 8; HR = 1.88; 95% CI, 1.51–2.33; P < 0.001). No significant publication bias was detected in this meta-analysis. Conclusions: GLUT-1 overexpression was in connection with aggressive clinical features and worse OS in OSCC. However, further studies are still needed to verify whether GLUT-1 could serve as a prognostic biomarker for OSCC.