Fig. 6

Forest plots and funnel plots demonstrating the associations between PDCD4 expression and disease-free survival (DFS)/relapse-free survival (RFS) of patients with solid tumors. a Forest plot shows that low PDCD4 expression level is significantly associated with a low DFS/RFS rate. In total, 10 studies in 5 papers were included. A fixed effects model was used to calculate the pooled HR for DFS/RFS. Significant associations are observed in univariate model and in multivariate model. Different Duke’s stages were reported by Horiuchi et al.: Horiuchi [31] (01) for Duke’s stage B and Horiuchi [31] (02) for Duke’s stage C colorectal cancer in multivariate analysis; Horiuchi [31] (04) for Duke’s stage B and Horiuchi [31] (05) for Duke’s stage C colorectal cancer in univariate analysis. b Funnel plot shows no evidence of publication bias among papers on the association between PDCD4 expression and disease-free survival rate of various types of cancer. The P value is 0.902 in Begg’s test and is 0.550 in Egger’s test