Long noncoding RNA UCA1 can serve as a prognostic marker in human cancer: a meta-analysis

It has been reported that urothelial cancer associated 1 (UCA1) is dysregulated in various cancers. We performed this meta-analysis to clarify its promising functions as a prognosis marker in malignant tumors. Electronic databases, including PubMed, Medline, OVID, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science, were searched from inception to July 11, 2016. The hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated to explore the relationship between UCA1 expression and overall survival (OS), which were extracted from the eligible studies. The odds ratio (OR) was calculated to assess the association between UCA1 expression and pathological parameters using RevMan5.3 software. Twelve original studies were included in this meta-analysis that included 1,081 cancer patients. The pooled HR suggested that high UCA1 expression was significantly correlated with poor OS (pooled HR= 1.80, 95% CI: 1.52-2.13) in cancer patients without obvious heterogeneity. UCA1 expression was found to be significantly related to lymph node metastasis (LNM) (OR=2.23, 95% CI: 1.52-3.28), distant metastasis (DM) (OR= 3.32, 95% CI: 2.06-5.35) and tumor stage (OR=2.79, 95% CI: 2.15-3.62). Subgroup analysis showed that the type of cancer did not alter the significant predictive value of UCA1 in OS, LNM, DM and tumor stage from different types of cancer. This meta-analysis demonstrated that high UCA1 expression significantly predicts poor OS, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis and high tumor stage, suggesting that high UCA1 expression may serve as a novel biomarker for poor prognosis in cancers.