Correlations of pituitary tumor transforming gene expression with human pituitary adenomas: a meta-analysis

• Published in: PloS one 2014-03, Vol.9 (3), p.e90396-e90396
• Main Authors: Xiao, Jian-Qi, Liu, Xiao-Hai, Hou, Bo, Yao, Yong, Deng, Kan, Feng, Min, Xing, Bin, Lian, Wei, Wang, Ren-Zhi, Feng, Feng
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adenoma - blood supply; Adenoma - genetics; Adenoma - pathology; Angiogenesis; Biology; Brain cancer; Brain tumors; Cancer; Confidence intervals; Correlation; Development and progression; Etiology; Fibroblasts; Gene expression; Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; Genes; Genetic aspects; Genetic transformation; Humans; Hyperplasia; Medicine; Meta-analysis; Microvessels - pathology; Neoplasm Invasiveness; Neurosurgery; Paracrine signalling; Patients; Pituitary; Pituitary gland; Pituitary Neoplasms - blood supply; Pituitary Neoplasms - genetics; Pituitary Neoplasms - pathology; Pituitary tumor-transforming proteins; Securin - genetics; Securin - metabolism; Studies; Thyroid gland; Transformation; Tumorigenesis; Tumors; Vascular endothelial growth factor
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0090396

Pituitary tumor transforming gene (PTTG) is an important paracrine growth factor involved in early lactotrope transformation and early onset of angiogenesis in pituitary hyperplasia. Emerging evidences have shown that PTTG expression may contribute to the etiology of pituitary adenomas; but individually published studies showed inconclusive results. This meta-analysis aimed to derive a more precise estimation of the correlations of PTTG expression with human pituitary adenomas. A range of electronic databases were searched: MEDLINE (1966∼2013), the Cochrane Library Database (Issue 12, 2013), EMBASE (1980∼2013), CINAHL (1982∼2013), Web of Science (1945∼2013) and the Chinese Biomedical Database (CBM) (1982∼2013) without language restrictions. Meta-analysis was performed using the STATA 12.0 software. Crude odds ratio (OR) or standard mean difference (SMD) with its corresponding 95% confidence interval (95%CI) were calculated. Twenty-four clinical cohort studies were included with a total of 1,464 pituitary adenomas patients. The meta-analysis results revealed that patients with invasive pituitary adenomas had higher positive expression of PTTG than those of non-invasive patients (OR  = 6.68, 95%CI  = 3.72-11.99, P0.05). This present meta-analysis suggests that PTTG expression may be associated with tumor invasiveness and microvessel density of pituitary adenomas, while no correlations with functional status was found.