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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Gastrointestinal Cancers: Colorectal Cancer
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1429319
This article is part of the Research Topic Organ Preservation for Rectal Cancer Patients View all 6 articles
Tumor budding, an indicator of locally-advanced rectal cancer prognosis after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy; a systematic review and meta-analysis
Provisionally accepted- 1 Pathologist, Iranian Medical and Pathology Laboratory, Zahedan, Iran
- 2 Department of Pathology, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran
- 3 Cancer Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Alborz, Iran
- 4 Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, Gilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, Gilan, Iran
Tumor budding (TB) is a complementary prognostic factor for colorectal cancer. Nevertheless, data regarding its impact on the survival of patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT) is limited. The current study aims to investigate the role of TB on the disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) in patients with locally-advanced rectal cancer undergoing nCRT therapy. In the current systematic review and meta-analysis an exhaustive search on the PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science (WOS), Embase and Cochrane databases was performed culminating in the extraction of 8 studies in the qualitative assessment and meta-analysis study. All the studies had high quality. The sample size of the study includes 1941 individuals. From all 8 studies, 9 studies were extracted because each study may consist of more than one outcome measurements.TB positivity was statistically associated with the decreased overall survival 3.24 (95%CI: 1.71-6.16) and disease-free survival 2.54 (95% CI: 1.56-4.15) in patients with locally-advanced rectal cancer undergoing nCRT. Based on the findings of the current study, TB negativity was statistically and directly associated with better OS and DFS in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer undergoing nCRT.
Keywords: Rectal neoplasm, Neoadjuvant Therapy, tumor budding, prognosis, Colon Cacner
Received: 07 May 2024; Accepted: 24 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Rafiee, Nasri, Moradi and Karimian. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Azita Rafiee, Pathologist, Iranian Medical and Pathology Laboratory, Zahedan, Iran
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