// Zhibo Tan 1 , Weixi Shen 1 1 Department of Oncology, Shenzhen Hospital of Southern Medical University, Shenzhen, Guangdong, P.R. China Correspondence to: Weixi Shen, email: shenweixiszh@sohu.com Keywords: meta-analysis, B7-H4, lung cancer, evidence-based medicine Received: December 14, 2016 Accepted: January 24, 2017 Published: February 23, 2017 ABSTRACT B7 homolog 4 (B7-H4) has been recently reported to be a prognostic marker in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in some studies. However, the results remained conflicting. Thus, we aimed to comprehensively assess the association between B7-H4 expression and prognosis of NSCLC patients by performing a meta-analysis. Relevant publications were thoroughly searched of PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). The pooled odds ratios (ORs) and hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were applied to evaluate the effects. A total of 9 studies comprising 1444 patients were included in this meta-analysis. B7-H4 overexpression was associated with presence of lymph node metastasis (OR=3.59, 95%CI=2.39-5.38, p
