• Yuan Huang, Weibo Wen, Xiangdan Li, Dongyuan Xu, and Lan Liu.
• Department of Pathology, Yanbian University Hospital, Yanji, China.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2023 Apr 14; 102 (15): e33547e33547.

BackgroundLymphovascular space invasion (LVSI) is a prognostic factor in the existing TNM classification system. The present meta-analysis assessed the role of LVSI in predicting the prognosis of stage IA to IIB cervical cancer (CC).Materials And MethodsPubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library electronic databases were searched to determine relevant articles published in the English language. Our search deadline was May 2022. Critical Appraisal of Prognostic Studies was used to assess the quality for each article. Pooled hazard ratios (HRs) were used to evaluate the performance of LVSI in prognosis prediction.ResultsWe enrolled 8 studies involving 25,352 patients published after 2010. Thus, high LVSI was an unfavorable factor in predicting overall survival (HR, 2.08; 95% confidence interval, 1.63-2.66; P = .006) and disease-free survival (HR, 2.20; 95% confidence interval, 1.79-2.70; P = .000) for patients with CC. However, the disease-free survival and overall survival were significantly different on univariate analysis based on the subgroup analysis stratified by analysis method, but no obvious heterogeneity was found across diverse articles.ConclusionsThe present study showed that LVSI predicts the poor prognostic outcome of stage IA to IIB CC. However, well-designed clinical articles should further assess the independent prognosis prediction performance of LVSI in CC.Copyright © 2023 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

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