Up to now, the prognosis of
non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is poor. With progress of
cancer biology, a number of genes have been investigated for predicting prognosis of NSCLC, such as cancer stem cell markers SRY (sex determining region Y)-box 2 (SOX2) and
Nestin. Recently, a series of studies have been performed to examine the associations of SOX2 and
Nestin with clinical parameters and prognosis in NSCLC, however, the results were not consistent. In the present study, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to summarize the associations. Four English databases (PubMed, ISI web of science, Embase, and Ovid) were used to search the relevant studies with the last date of November 10, 2015. The pooling analyses were stratified by
DNA amplification and
protein expression. The pooling
ORs or HRs were used to assess the strength of the associations. Finally, we included 19 articles for SOX2 and six articles for
Nestin according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The pooling analyses revealed that there were significant associations between SOX2
DNA amplification and clinical features of NSCLC, gender, smoking status,
squamous cell cancer (SCC) histology, and differentiations. And significant associations were also identified between SOX2
protein expression and clinical parameters, smoking status and SCC histology. For
Nestin, its
protein expression was correlated with
lymph node metastasis and stage. Simultaneously, we found that high/positive SOX2 alterations, either
DNA amplification or
protein expression, were favorable for overall survival (OS) in NSCLC. On the contrary, high/positive
Nestin protein expression was poor for OS.