CD133 expression in patients with peripheral neuroblastic tumor: a systematic review

Neuroblastoma is known as one of the most common solid tumors in children, which is recently under the investigation for the expression of CD133, a marker of cancer stem cells. Revealing the prognostic value of CD133 marker expression is important in predicting the outcome and survival of neuroblastoma patients. In this systematic review, we aimed to review the studies on association between CD133 expression and other peripheral neuroblastic tumor prognostic factors. PubMed was searched for the relevant articles. No time and language limitation were included in our search strategy. Data regarding the patients’ number and age, tumor stage, histology and CD133 expression were extracted. Overall, only 4 relevant articles were retrieved. One articles revealed the positive association between CD133 expression in neuroblastoma samples and its resistance to chemotherapy treatment. Three of the included articles showed the positive relation between CD133 expression rate and tumor stage progression. Two of the included studies revealed much worse survival of the neuroblastoma patients with more expression of CD133. Based on included studies, CD133 expression is positively related with poor outcome prognosis in patients, more advanced tumor stage, shorter disease-free survival and overall survival. Although the expression of CD133 has shown increasing trend by advancing the neuroblastoma tumor stage, more studies with larger sample size are needed to accurately reveal the relation.