Table 3.
Subgroup analysis of the meta-analysis for PFS
| Subgroup | No. of studies | No. of patients | Pooled HR | 95% CI | P | Heterogeneity test | Statistical method | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I2 | P | |||||||
| Analysis of survival | ||||||||
| Multivariate | 9 [1, 7, 29, 35, 41, 44–47] | 2487 | 1.30 | 1.14–1.47 | < 0.001 | 37.1% | 0.080 | Fixed |
| Univariate | 5 [11, 22, 28, 34, 36] | 2660 | 1.19 | 1.01–1.40 | 0.036 | 0.0% | 0.441 | Fixed |
| Cut-off value | ||||||||
| ≤ 1.0 | 5 [1, 7, 41, 45, 46] | 1187 | 1.55 | 1.32–1.82 | < 0.001 | 0.0% | 0.617 | Fixed |
| > 1.0 | 9 [11, 22, 28, 29, 34–36, 44, 47] | 3960 | 1.11 | 0.99–1.24 | 0.053 | 0.0% | 0.643 | Fixed |
| Disease site | ||||||||
| Nasopharyngeal cancer | 3 [22, 29, 44] | 2074 | 1.31 | 1.12–1.53 | 0.001 | 0.0% | 0.444 | Fixed |
| Breast cancer | 2 [1, 45] | 482 | 1.76 | 1.42–2.20 | < 0.001 | 0.0% | 0.820 | Fixed |
| Renal cancer | 2 [11, 41] | 332 | 1.15 | 0.84–1.59 | 0.36 | 0.0% | 0.690 | Fixed |
| Disease stage | ||||||||
| Non metastatic | 6 [7, 28, 29, 34, 44, 46] | 2814 | 1.34 | 1.14–1.56 | < 0.001 | 0.0% | 0.612 | Fixed |
| Metastatic | 3 [1, 41, 45] | 856 | 1.54 | 1.30–1.84 | < 0.001 | 15.2% | 0.316 | Fixed |
| Mixed | 5 [11, 22, 35, 36, 47] | 1477 | 1.10 | 0.97–1.24 | 0.138 | 0.0% | 0.528 | Fixed |
| Region | ||||||||
| Asian(China, Korea, Japan) | 7 [22, 28, 29, 34, 35, 44, 47] | 3408 | 1.20 | 1.07–1.34 | 0.002 | 20.2% | 0.257 | Fixed |
| Non Asian(America, France, Italy) | 7 [1, 7, 11, 36, 41, 45, 46] | 1739 | 1.37 | 1.20–1.55 | < 0.001 | 31.6% | 0.176 | Fixed |