The association between HIC1 methylation and ovarian cancer: a meta-analysis

Objective : HIC1 is a tumor suppressor gene (TSG) located in the 17p13.3 region that encodes a transcriptional repressor. Research published over the past few years indicates that HIC1 methylation is a critical factor in the oncogenesis of ovarian cancer (OC). However, previous studies had only small sample sizes and thus were unable to reach firm conclusions. Data Sources : Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis to further investigate the association between HIC1 methylation and OC. Studies related to HIC1 methylation and OC were identified from searches of PubMed, EMBASE, Medline and CNKI. Methods of Study Selection : Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to assess the association between the two factors. Subgroup analysis and Begg’s test were used to evaluate heterogeneity and publication bias. From 591 studies, 7 were selected for meta-analysis and these comprised 455 cases and 278 controls. Tabulation, Integration and Results : A significant association between HIC1 methylation and OC was found under the fixed-effects model (OR = 4.306, 95% CI = 2.846 to 6.515). Subgroup analysis of the control type yielded a less tight association (OR = 4.143, p = 0.147, I 2 = 41.1%). Finally, we conducted analysis of the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data and found higher HIC1 methylation levels in OC compared to adjacent non-tumor tissue. Conclusion : In conclusion, this meta-analysis found that HIC1 methylation was strongly associated with OC.