Fig. 4: Forest plots representing the estimated hazards ratios (HR) and associated 95% confidence intervals for the individual studies included in the inverse variance meta-analysis.

For each analysis the low expression level was set as a reference. The following analysis were performed: overall survival (OS) for MUC2 expression (a); cancer specific survival (CSS) for MUC2 expression (b); OS for MUC5AC expression (c); OS for MUC1 expression (d) and CSS for MUC1 expression (e). The size of the boxes are related to the weight of each study in the pooled HR estimate of the random effects model. The full line indicates HR = 1 or no difference in survival between both groups, while the dotted line indicates the estimated pooled HR. Heterogeneity measures I² and τ² are reported for each analysis and a χ² test was performed (p < 0.1 indicates significant heterogeneity between study findings). Significance of the random effects model pooled hazards ratio was tested using the Z-test (z-score and associated p-value).