Recent studies in cancer have demonstrated that cancerous tissues have a significantly higher MALAT1 level than in noncancerous tissues. Overexpression of MALAT1 is associated with susceptibility to lymph node metastasis. This meta-analysis collected all relevant articles and explored the association of MALAT1 expression levels with lymph node metastasis in patients with carcinoma. Literature collections were conducted by searching electronic databases PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science (up to January 20, 2015). The odds ratio (OR) and its corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated to assess the strength of the association by using RevMan5.1 software. A total of 573 patients from 5 studies were included in this meta-analysis. The results showed lymph node metastasis occurred more frequently in patients with high MALAT1 expression group than in patients with low MALAT1 expression group (OR = 2.64, 95% CI 1.06-6.56, P = 0.04 random-effects model). This meta-analysis demonstrated that overexpression of MALAT1 is significantly associated with lymph node metastasis in carcinoma patients.
Keywords: MALAT1; cancer; lncRNA; lymph node metastasis; meta-analysis.