Table 1

Summary of meta-analyses of the results of studies on candidate immunohistochemistry markers for survival of patients with non-small cell lung carcinoma

Marker	First author	Published studies	Number of eligible studies	Number of patients	Overall HR*	95% CI	Significance/comment
CI, confidence interval; EGFR, epidermal growth factor receptor; HER, human epidermal growth factor receptor; HR, hazard ratio of death for high expression of the marker.
*HR>1 implies worse survival for the group with increased expression of the marker, whereas HR<1 (Bcl-2) indicates better survival for the group with higher expression. For p53, the prognostic significance of studies that used Pab1801 and DO7 antibodies were separately analysed.
EGFR	Meert⁶	Until July 2001	8	1987	1.13	1.00 to 1.28	Weak significance
P21RAS	Mascaux²⁹	Until July 2003	7	989	1.08	0.86 to 1.34	Not significant
HER-2	Nakamura¹⁸	Until August 2004	18	2579	1.32	1.14 to 1.65	17/27 negative studies excluded for lack of detailed survival data
P53	Steels¹⁰⁸	Until July 1999	8 (Pab1801)	1035	1.57	1.28 to 1.91	True significance requires prospective and multivariate confirmation by a standardised technique, scoring criteria and cut-offs
P53	Steels¹⁰⁸	Until July 1999	16 (DO-7)	2067	1.25	1.09 to 1.43
Ki-67	Martin⁶¹	Until December 2002	16	1863	1.55	1.34 to 1.78
Bcl-2	Martin¹²⁹	1993 to December 1999	18	2909	0.72	0.64 to 0.82