Table 1.

Characteristics of studies included in the meta-analysis

First author	Year	Country	Cases	Ages (mean)	Type	Method
da Cunha [12]	2010	Portugal	43	not shown	CD44v6	IHC
Okayama [14]	2013	Japan	135	63.4 y	CD44v6	IHC
Horikawa [15]	2013	Japan	147	66 ± 11 y	CD44	RT-PCR
Chen [16]	2013	China	152	55 y	CD44	IHC
Mayer [17]	1993	Germany	60	not shown	CD44	IHC
Müller [18]	1997	Germany	529	64.9 y	CD44v6	IHC
Wakamatsu [19]	2012	Japan	190	not shown	CD44	IHC
Kurozumi [20]	1998	Japan	572	61 ± 11 y	CD44	IHC
Yamaguchi [21]	2002	Japan	201	not shown	CD44v6	WB
Chen [22]	2013	China	43	58.5 ± 13.4 y	CD44v6	RT-PCR
Liang [23]	2012	China	59	61.8 ± 10.5 y	CD44v6	IHC
Kim [24]	1997	Korea	26	not shown	CD44v6	RT-PCR
Chen [25]	2005	China	31	not shown	CD44v6	IHC
Yoo [26]	1999	Korea	261	56 y	CD44	JHC
Xin [27]	2001	China	155	not shown	CD44v6	IHC
Chong [28]	1997	Japan	104	62.8 y	CD44v6	IHC
Cao [29]	2014	China	203	60.5 y	CD44	IHC
Qiu [30]	2014	China	309	60.4 ± 10.4 y	CD44	IHC

RT-PCR, reverse transcription PCR; IHC, immunohistochemistry; WB, Western blot.