Aberrant promoter methylation of SOCS-1 gene may contribute to the pathogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma: a meta-analysis.

Purpose: We conducted this meta-analysis of published case-control studies aiming to evaluate the relationship between abnormal suppression of cytokine signaling-1 (SOCS-1) promoter methylation and the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods: Relevant studies were retrieved from PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and China Biological Medicine (CBM) databases without language restrictions. Meta-analysis was conducted using the STATA 12.0 software. We calculated odds ratio (OR) and its 95 % confidence interval (95% CI) to estimate the correlations. Results: Sixteen case-control studies with a total of 941 HCC patients and 114 individuals with benign liver diseases met our inclusion criteria. Our results demonstrated that the frequency of SOCS-1 promoter methylation cancer tissues was significantly higher than in adjacent non-tumorous tissues and benign tissues (cancer tissue vs adjacent tissue: OR=3.05, 95%CI 1.62-5.77, p=0.001; cancer tissue vs benign tissue: OR=11.55, 95%CI 5.93-22.49, p=0.000). Subgroup analyses by ethnicity, detecting method and sample size also suggested that abnormal SOCS-1 promoter methylation was correlated to the risk of HCC in the majority of these subgroups. Conclusion: Our findings provide empirical evidence that abnormal SOCS-1 promoter methylation may contribute to the pathogenesis of HCC. Thus, detection of SOCS-1 promoter methylation may be a valuable diagnostic biomarker for HCC.