Clinicopathological and prognostic value of STAT3/p-STAT3 in cervical cancer: A meta and bioinformatics analysis

Signal transducer and activator of transcription-3 (STAT3) is an important member of the STAT family. Studies have found that it can participate in cell signal transduction and transcriptional activation. STAT3 plays an important role in tumor angiogenesis, immunity and tumor invasion and metastasis. Previous studies have found that STAT3 and phosphorylated STAT3(p-STAT3) are abnormally expressed in cervical cancer. In the research, we systematically analyzed the expression of STAT3 and phospho-STAT3(p-STAT3) in cervical cancer tissues and their correlation with clinicopathological features in patients with cervical cancer. We searched literature using PubMed, Web of Science and China National Knowledge Infrastructure(CNKI) on 10th Dec, 2020. Our results showed that the expression of STAT3 and p-STAT3 in cervical cancer tissues was significantly higher than that in normal tissues and cervical intraepithelial lesions, and the expression of STAT3 in cervical intraepithelial lesions was higher than that in normal cervical tissues (P < 0.05). The expression of STAT3 in cervical squamous cell carcinoma tissue was higher than that in adenocarcinoma tissue(p < 0.05). A positive association was found STAT3 expression and Lymph node metastasis, Infiltrating depth and TNM staging of cervical cancer patients(p < 0.05). p-STAT3 expression was also associated with Dedifferentiation, Lymph node metastasis and Depth of invasion(p < 0.05). According to oncomine database, STAT3 mRNA and DNA expression were obviously higher in cervical cancer tissue than cervix uteri tissue(p < 0.05). According to kmplotter, GEPIA and UALCAN databases, the expression of STAT3 in cervical cancer tissues is higher than that in normal tissues(p < 0.05), but it has no significant correlation with the prognosis of patients(p > 0.05). The high expression of STAT3 and p-STAT3 might be a potential marker for tumor occurrence and metastasis in cervical cancer patients.