MALAT 1 overexpression correlates with clinical progression and decreased survival in patients with esophageal cancer : a meta-analysis

Metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1) is involved in tumor development and progression. Recent studies have shown that the MALAT1 expression may correlate with prognosis in esophageal cancer (EC). This study aimed to evaluate the prognostic value of MALAT1 in EC. A systematic literature search was conducted in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Wanfang databases. Studies of the prognostic value of the MALAT1 in EC were included. Pooled hazard ratio (HR)/Odds Ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were calculated using fixed-effects/random-effects models. A total of five studies comprising 507 patients with EC were finally included. MALAT1 overexpression correlated significantly with poor overall survival (OS) (HR, 2.00; 95% CI, 1.14-2.86; p < 0.001), positive lymph node metastasis (LNM) (OR, 1.77; 95% CI, 1.04-3.00; p = 0.04) and worse tumor differentiation (OR, 2.06; 95% CI, 1.21-3.51; p = 0.008). No significant association was observed in gender (OR, 1.23; 95% CI, 0.78-1.93; p = 0.37) and depth of tumor (OR, 1.64; 95% CI, 0.37-7.34; p = 0.52). Upregulation of MALAT-1 correlated with clinical progression and decreased survival, therefore it might serve as a prognostic biomarker for EC.