Long noncoding RNA ANRIL: a potential novel prognostic marker in cancer: a meta-analysis.

Abstract Numerous researches have showed that the dysregulation of lncRNA ANRIL play a significant role in cancer progression, and high expression of ANRIL may have important clinical value. This meta-analysis aims to investigate potential clinical application role of ANRIL as a biomarker for cancer prognosis. The electronic search was conducted in Pubmed, EMBASE, Web of Science, CNKI and Wanfang database (up to January 27, 2016). We collected relevant articles to explore the association between the expression levels of ANRIL and overall survival (OS). A total of 519 cancer patients from six studies were finally included. The results showed that cancer patients with high ANRIL expression may have a poorer OS (HR=1.95, 95%CI:1.37-2.53, P=0.000, fixed-effect model) than those with low ANRIL expression. High expression of ANRIL is associated with poor clinical outcome. ANRIL might be act as a novel potential prognostic biomarker in various cancers.