Table 1. Main characteristics of the eligible studies.

Study	Year	Country	Recruitment period	Study design	Inclusion and exclusion criteria	Consecutive Patients	Specimen	Method	Compartment	Cut-off	Definitionof survival	Blindassessment	Quality Assessment(0–8)
Gazzaniga10	2003	Italy	1996–1998	retrospective	no	NA	tissue	RT-PCR	−	−	yes	NA	5
Schultz52	2003	Netherlands	NA	retrospective	no	NA	tissue	real-time RT-PCR	−	0.26*	yes	NA	5
Ku53	2004	Korea	1993–1997	retrospective	no	no	tissue	IHC	cytoplasm	20%	yes	blind	5
Schultz54	2004	Netherlands	NA	retrospective	no	NA	urine	real-time RT-PCR	−	0.13*	yes	NA	3
Yin55	2006	China	NA	retrospective	no	yes	tissue	IHC	nuclear	8%	no	NA	4
Karam56	2007	USA	1995–2003	retrospective	no	NA	tissue	IHC	nuclear or cytoplasm	10%	yes	NA	3
Pina-Cabral57	2007	Portugal	NA	retrospective	no	NA	urine	RT-PCR	−	−	yes	NA	3
Skagias58	2009	Greece	1998–2005	retrospective	no	NA	tissue	IHC	nuclear	10%	yes	blind	5
Weiss59	2009	Germany	1982–2004	retrospective	no	no	tissue	IHC	nuclear or cytoplasm	20%	yes	NA	5
Gradilone11	2010	Italy	NA	retrospective	yes	NA	tissue	RT-PCR	−	−	no	NA	4
Fristrup(Denmark)60	2012	Denmark	1979–2007	retrospective	no	NA	tissue	IHC	nuclear	10%	yes	blind	5
Fristrup(validation1)60	2012	Sweden	1984–2005	retrospective	no	NA	tissue	IHC	nuclear	10%	yes	blind	5
Fristrup(validation2)60	2012	Spain	1994–2008	retrospective	no	NA	tissue	IHC	nuclear	10%	yes	blind	5
Xi61	2013	China	2000–2006	retrospective	yes	no	tissue	IHC	NA	10%	yes	blind	6
Shariat62	2009	Multination	1983–2005	retrospective	yes	no	tissue	IHC	nuclear or cytoplasm	10%	yes	NA	4
Als63	2007	Denmark	1995–2004	retrospective	yes	NA	tissue	IHC,microarray	cytoplasm with an intensity of 2 or 3	10%	no	NA	6

^*survivin mRNA copy number/cyclophilin mRNA copy number.

NA: not available, RT-PCR: reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction, IHC: immunohistochemistry.