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Promoter methylation of DAPK gene may contribute to the pathogenesis of nonsmall cell lung cancer: a meta-analysis.

We performed a meta-analysis of cohort studies to determine whether promoter methylation of the death-associated protein kinase (DAPK) gene contributes to the pathogenesis of nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC). 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 any language restrictions. Meta-analysis was conducted using the STATA 12.0 software. Crude odds ratio (OR) with 95 % confidence interval (95 % CI) was calculated. Our meta-analysis integrated results from 12 clinical cohort studies that met all inclusion criteria with a total of 1,027 NSCLC patients. We observed that the frequency of DAPK gene methylation in cancer tissues were significantly higher than that in the adjacent normal and benign tissues (cancer tissues vs. benign tissues: OR=8.50, 95 % CI=5.88 ∼ 12.28, P<0.001; cancer tissues vs. adjacent tissues: OR=5.95, 95 % CI=4.11 ∼ 8.60, P<0.001; cancer tissues vs. normal tissues: OR=4.75, 95 % CI=3.28 ∼ 6.87, P<0.001; respectively). Subgroup analysis by ethnicity demonstrated that DAPK gene methylation was closely associated with the development and progression of NSCLC among both Asians and Caucasians (all P<0.05). Furthermore, we conducted a subgroup analysis based on sample source and discovered that DAPK gene methylation was implicated in the pathogenesis of NSCLC in both blood and tissue subgroups (all P<0.05). Our results suggest that DAPK promoter methylation may be involved in NSCLC carcinogenesis. Thus, the detection of aberrant DAPK methylation may be helpful in the diagnosis and prognosis of NSCLC.