A systematic review and meta-analysis of runt-related transcription factor 3 gene promoter hypermethylation and risk of gastric cancer

Objective: To evaluate the association between runt-related transcription factor 3 (RUNX3) gene promoter hypermethylation and gastric cancer risk by meta-analysis. Materials and Methods: By searching Medline, EMBASE, Ovid, China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Wanfang databases, the open published articles reporting the relationship between RUNX3 gene promoter hypermethylation, and gastric carcinoma risk, were screened. The aggregated odds ratio of RUNX3 gene promoter hypermethylation in cancerous sample of gastric cancer patients compared to normal gastric tissue of gastric cancer patients was pooled by statistic software STATA-11.0. Results: Sixteen studies include 2631 samples were finally included in this meta-analysis. The aggregated results indicated that the hypermethylation rate in cancerous tissue was much higher than that in normal tissue (55.1% vs. 26.5%, P < 0.05). And the pooled results showed that the RUNX3 gene promoter methylation odds in tumor tissue in gastric cancer patients compared to normal gastric tissue was 5.47 (95% confidence interval: 3.34-8.96). Conclusion: RUNX3 gene promoter hypermethylation rate was much higher in tumor tissue than that in normal gastric tissue in the patient with gastric cancer.