High pretreatment plasma D-dimer levels predict poor prognosis in gastrointestinal cancers A meta-analysis

Abstract

Background: High pretreatment plasma D-dimer levels can predict poor prognosis in various types of gastrointestinal carcinomas. Our meta-analysis explored the correlation between plasma D-dimer levels and prognosis in gastrointestinal malignancies. Methods: Two independent reviewers conducted a comprehensive search from PubMed, ScienceDirect, Embase, Web of Science and the Cochrane Library. All articles evaluating the correlation between pretreatment plasma D-dimer levels and prognosis in gastrointestinal malignancies were searched. We chose overall survival (OS) as the primary survival outcome measure and progression-free survival (PFS), disease-free survival (DFS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) as the secondary survival outcome measures. We extracted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) from the eligible publications. Results:We included 30 studies involving 5928 gastrointestinal cancer patients. There was an obvious correlation between high Ddimer levels and poor OS (HR=2.01, 95% CI=1.72-2.36, P