Abstract
Previous studies have investigated that the expression levels of MALAT-1 were higher in cancerous tissues than matched histologically normal tissues. And, to some extent, overexpression of MALAT-1 was inclined to lymph node metastasis. This meta-analysis collected all relevant articles and explored the association between MALAT-1 expression levels and lymph node metastasis. We searched PubMed, EmBase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and OVID to address the level of MALAT-1 expression in cancer cases and noncancerous controls (accessed February 2015). And 8 studies comprising 696 multiple cancer patients were included to assess this association. The odds ratio (OR) and its corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated to assess the strength of the association using Stata 12.0 version software. The results revealed there was a significant difference in the incidence of lymph node metastasis between high MALAT-1 expression group and low MALAT-1 expression group (OR = 1.94, 95% CI 1.15–3.28, P = 0.013 random-effects model). Subgroup analysis indicated that MALAT-1 high expression had an unfavorable impact on lymph node metastasis in Chinese patients (OR = 1.87, 95% CI 1.01–2.46). This study demonstrated that the incidence of lymph node metastasis in patients detected with high MALAT-1 expression was higher than that in patients with low MALAT-1 expression in China.
Highlights
As is well known, malignant tumors are of great harm to human health and the trend of death is rising year by year
For high Metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript1 (MALAT-1) expression group versus low MALAT-1 expression group, the studies were found to have moderate heterogeneity (I2 = 60.5%, P = 0.013), so a random-effects model was applied to calculate a pooled odds ratio (OR) and its 95% confidence interval (CI) (1.94, 95% CI: 1.15–3.28), which was statistically significant (Figure 2)
Through comparing the incidence of lymph node metastasis between high MALAT-1 expression group and low MALAT-1 expression group, we found that there was a significant difference in the incidence of lymph node metastasis between the two groups
Summary
Malignant tumors are of great harm to human health and the trend of death is rising year by year. The 5-year survival rate remains low in many types of cancers, and numerous investigators are searching for biomarkers that may assist the diagnosis or prognosis of cancer [2]. In the tumor of the clinical pathological features, the occurrence of lymph node metastasis is a meaningful indicator for distant metastasis and survival in most cancers. Determination of lymph node metastasis is an important part of the TNM classification system, which dictates the choice of therapy and predicts prognosis of cancer patients. In the multistep process of metastasis, invasion into the lymphatic system has generally been believed as a key step of tumor cell dissemination [3]
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