ABSTRACT
Objective To evaluate the prognostic significance of squamous cell carcinoma-associated antigen (SCC-Ag) in cervical cancer.Methods The databases of Pubmed,Embase,Science Direct and Cochrane Library were searched to collect all the literatures of the prognostic correlation of SCC-Ag for cervical cancer and evaluate the quality of the included literatures according to the evaluation criteria.Hazard ratio (HR) and 95％ confidence interval (CI) were used to evaluate the correlation between SCC-Ag and prognosis of cervical cancer,and the subgroup analysis was also performed.the forest map and funnel map were plotted out by StataSE12.0 software.Results A total of 14 articles met to inclusion criteria were included.The high expression of SCC-Ag correlated significantly with the poor overall survival,(OS) in prognosis of cervical cancer (HR =2.73,95％ CI =1.48-5.05,P =0.001).The disease free survival (DFS) of low expression of SCC-Ag was longer than that of high expression of SCC-Ag (HR =2.17,95％ CI =1.84-2.57,P ＜0.01).No correlation of high expression of SCC-Ag with progression-free survival (PFS) of the patients was found (HR =2.68,95％ CI =0.99-7.24,P =0.051).There was a significant heterogeneity of prospective OS (I2 =93.1％,P ＜0.01) in the subgroup analysis,but there was no statistical heterogeneity of prognostic DFS in the subgroup analysis (12 =23％,P =0.239).Conclusion SCC-Ag should be an important prognostic factor for cervical cancer.High expression of SCC-Ag may associate with poor prognosis of cervical cancer with statistical significance.