Table 1.

Characteristic of the included studies.

Cancer type	Study	Country	Case	Age median	Test method	location	Cut-off value	Follow-up time (range) months	Outcome endpoints	NOS
Prostate cancer	Kristiansen et al.17	Germany	91	63	IHC	tumour	Positive:weak & intermediate & strong	30.5(2–84)	DFS	8
							Negative:complete absence of immunoreactivity
Breast cancer	Fritzsche et al.20	Germany	155	59	IHC	tumour	Positive (score = 1–12)	75(1–162)	OS,DFS	8
							Negative(score = 0) (Range of 0–12)
Breast cancer	Innes et al.21	UK	225	64	IHC	tumour	Positive: ≥ 1% carcinoma cells stained	85.9(0.1–212)	OS	8
							Negative: < 1% carcinoma cells stained
Lung cancer	Fritzsche et al.9	Germany	77	62	IHC	tumour	Positive: score1&2	23(0–92)	DSS	8
							Negative:score 0 (Range of 0–2)
Prostate cancer	Zhang et al.22	UK	65	73	IHC	tumour	Positive: (2–16)	NA	OS	7
							Negative:(1) (Range of 1–16)
Breast cancer	Wu et al.23	China	72	50	IHC	tumour	Positive:stained in the cytoplasm, yellow or brown particles	60(8–64)	OS	8
							Negative:complete absence
Breast cancer	Barraclough et al.14	UK	315	57	IHC	tumour	Positive: ≥ 1% carcinoma cells stained	192(168–240)	OS	8
							Negative: < 1% carcinoma cells stained
Breast cancer	Hrstka et al.24	Czech Republic	78	NA	QRT-PCR	tumour	High: > the mean expression levels	48	DFS	7
							Low: ≤ the mean expression levels
Lung cancer	Chung et al.25	Japan	111	68	ELISA	serum	Positive: > 2.6ng/ml	36(4–77)	OS,DFS	8
							Negative: < 2.6ng/ml
Lung cancer	Chung et al.27	Japan	212	67	IHC	tumour	Positive: > 50% carcinoma cells stained	24(3–61)	DSS	8
							Negative: < 1% carcinoma cells stained
Breast cancer	Rudland et al.26	UK	137	60.3	IHC	tumour	Positive: ≥ 1% carcinoma cells stained	192(168–240)	OS	8
							Negative: < 1% carcinoma cells stained
Colorectal Cancer	Valladares-Ayerbes et al.29,	Spain	54	62.7	QRT-PCR	serum	High: > the mean expression levels	58(17–84)	OS,PFS	8
							Low: ≤ the mean expression levels
Ovarian cancer	Darb-Esfahani et al.28,	Germany	124	NA	IHC	tumour	High: > 50% carcinoma cells stained	45 (2.5–162.3)	OS,PFS	8
							Low: ≤ 50% carcinoma cells stained
Ovarian cancer	Armes et al.18,	Australia	59	NA	IHC	tumour	Positive: > 50% carcinoma cells stained	NA	DFS	7
							Negative: ≤ 50% carcinoma cells stained
Breast Cancer	Hrstka et al.24,	Czech Republic	61	79	QRT-PCR	tumour	High: > the mean expression levels	NA	OS,PFS	8
							Low: ≤ the mean expression levels
Colorectal Cancer	Riener et al.19,	Germany	432	72	IHC	tumour	High:score 2 or 3	42 (1–153)	OS	9
							Low:score 0 or 1 (Range of 0–3)
Lung cancer	Alavi et al.15,	USA	155	NA	IHC	tumour	High: > the mean expression levels	NA	OS	7
							Low: ≤ the mean expression levels
Breast Cancer	Hrstka et al.16,	Czech Republic	234	NA	IHC	tumour	High: > the mean expression levels	NA	RFS	7
							Low: ≤ the mean expression levels
Breast Cancer	Lacambra et al.31,	Singapore	400	53.9	IHC	tumour	Positive: ≥ 5% of cells with strong to moderate cytoplasmic staining	61.3 (3–210)	DFS	8
							Negative: < 5% of cells with strong to moderate cytoplasmic staining
Gastric cancer	Zhang et al.22,	China	228	NA	IHC	tumour	High:the product of the staining intensity and proportion of stained tumor cells scores ≥ 4	NA	OS	7
							Low:the product of the staining intensity and proportion of stained tumor cells scores ≤ 3

Abbreviations: NA: not available; IHC: Immunohistochemistry; QRT-PCR: Quantitative Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; NOS: Newcastle-Ottawa Scale; OS: overall survival; DSS: disease specific survival; DFS: disease free survival; RFS: recurrence free surviv.