Prognostic role of the long non-coding RNA metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 in various cancers: A meta-analysis

Several studies have investigated the correlation between the expression of metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1) and cancer prognosis, with inconsistent results. Therefore, a meta-analysis was conducted to identify the potential correlation after pooling data from eligible studies. PubMed/Medline, Web of Science and The Cochrane Library electronic databases were searched for eligible studies on the prognostic role of MALAT1 in cancer, from inception to January, 2015. Pooled hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to summarize the effect. A total of 1,198 patients from 10 studies were included in the analysis. The results suggested that MALAT1 expression was significantly associated with overall survival (HR=2.07, 95% CI: 1.67-2.56), disease-free survival (HR=2.60, 95% CI: 1.69-4.00) and recurrence-free survival (HR=3.28, 95% CI: 1.52-7.09). MALAT1 was also found to be significantly associated with tumor size (P=0.013). Overall, MALAT1 expression may be considered as a potential prognostic factor for cancer patients.