Clinicopathological and prognostic significance of Fusobacterium nucleatum infection in colorectal cancer: a meta-analysis

Abstract

Background: Accumulating evidences about the association between Fusobacterium nucleatum (F. nucleatum) and colorectal cancer (CRC) has been reported in various studies. However, the definite relationship between abundance of F. nucleatum with clinical characteristics and prognosis of CRC is still controversial. Methods: PubMed, Embase and Web of Science were searched for relevant articles up to April 7, 2020. Outcomes of interest included clinical characteristics, molecular characteristic and survival analysis. HR (OR), odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated to explore the prognostic value and relationship of clinical characteristics of Fusobacterium nucleatum in CRC.Results: A total of 3626 patients with CRC from 13 eligible studies were included. High abundance of F. nucleatum was associated with worse prognosis on overall survival (OS) (HR= 1.40, P < 0.0001), disease-free survival (DFS) (HR = 1.71, P = 0.0002) and cancer-specific survival (OR= 1.93, P <0.0001). In addition, F. nucleatum abundance was related with T (T3-T4) stage(OR = 2.20, P < 0.00001), M (M1) stage (OR = 2.11, P = 0.005), poor tumor differentation(OR = 1.83, P =0.02), microsatellite instability (MSI) -high (OR = 2.53, P = 0.0003) and KRAS mutation (OR =1.27, P=0.05).Conclusion: The present evidences revealed that high abundance of F. nucleatum is inclined to indicate worse prognosis and is associated with tumor growth, distant Impact: This study highlights the risk factor of F. nucleatum for worse prognosis of CRC.