Prognostic Role of the Circulating Tumor Cells Detected by Cytological Methods in Gastric Cancer: A Meta-Analysis

Table 1

Baseline characteristics and quality assessment by the Newcastle-Ottawa scale of eligible studies.

Study	Number	Methodology	CTC-high number	Country	Population	Time points	End point	Stars
Li et al. 2016 [10]	136	CellSearch	≥3	China	UR	Baseline	OS/PFS	7
						During chemotherapy	OS/PFS
Meulendijks et al. 2016 [11]	24	FACS-ICC	≥2	Netherlands	UR	Baseline	OS/PFS	5
Lee et al. 2015 [12]	100	CellSearch	≥5	Korea	UR	Baseline	OS/PFS	7
Okabe et al. 2015 [13]	136	CellSearch	≥1	Japan	R + UR	Baseline	OS/PFS	6
Xia et al. 2015 [14]	36	Flow cytometry	≥1	China	R	Baseline	OS	4
Kubisch et al. 2015 [15]	62	Immune-magnetic	≥1	USA	UR	Baseline	OS/PFS	7
						During chemotherapy	OS/PFS	7
Sclafani et al. 2014 [16]	22	CellSearch	≥2	UK	UR	Baseline	OS/PFS	4
Uenosono et al. 2013 [17]	251	CellSearch	≥1	Japan	UR	Baseline	OS	6
					R	Baseline	OS/RFS
Ito et al. 2012 [18]	65	ICC	≥5	Japan	R	Baseline	OS	5
Matsusaka et al. 2010 [19]	52	CellSearch	≥4	Japan	UR	Baseline	OS/PFS	6
						During chemotherapy	OS/PFS
Hiraiwa et al. 2008 [20]	27	CellSearch	≥2	Japan	UR	Baseline	OS	4
Pituch-Noworolska et al. 2007 [21]	57	FACS-ICC	≥1	Poland	R	Baseline	OS	7
Kolostova et al. 2015 [22]	22	MetaCell; ICC	≥1	Poland	R + UR	Baseline	NR	3
Li et al. 2015 [23]	44	FACS	≥1	China	R	Baseline	NR	4
Li et al. 2014 [24]	45	FACS	≥1	China	R + UR	Baseline	NR	4
Yuan et al. 2015 [25]	31	FACS	≥1	China	R + UR	Baseline	NR	4

FACS: fluorescence-activated cell sorter; ICC: Immunocytochemistry; UR: unresectable; R: resectable; NR: unreported; Stars: 0–4 means low quality; 5–9 means high quality.