Prognostic and clinical significance of long non-coding RNA HNF1A-AS1 in solid cancers: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: LncRNA HNF1A Antisense RNA 1 (HNF1A-AS1) is often dysregulated in cancer. We performed this meta-analysis to clarify the usefulness of HNF1A-AS1 as a prognostic marker in malignant tumors.

Methods: The PubMed, OVID, and Web of Science databases were searched from inception to January 11, 2018. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to explore the relationship between HNF1A-AS1 expression and survival. Odds ratios (OR) were calculated to assess the association between HNF1A-AS1 expression and pathological parameters.

Results: Eight studies with a total of 802 patients were included in the study. The pooled hazard ratio (HR) suggested high HNF1A-AS1 expression correlated with poor overall survival (OS) (HR = 4.85, 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.43-9.68), and disease-free survival (DFS) (HR = 6.34, 95% CI: 1.03-39.12) in cancer patients. High HNF1A-AS1 expression also correlated with poor histological grade (OR = 1.88, 95% CI: 1.27-2.79), high tumor stage (OR = 4.04, 95% CI: 2.53-6.47), lymph node metastasis (LNM) (OR = 4.53, 95% CI: 2.30-8.92), and distant metastasis (OR = 5.99, 95% CI: 2.88-12.48). Begg funnel plot did not show any evidence of obvious asymmetry for high tumor stage (Pr > |z| = 0.368) and LNM (Pr > |z| = 1.000).

Conclusions: Thus high HNF1A-AS1 expression is predictive of poor OS, DFS, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis, histological grade, and larger tumor stage, which suggests high HNF1A-AS1 expression may serve as a novel biomarker of poor prognosis in cancer.