Meta-analysis of the clinical value of abnormally expressed long non-coding RNAs for pancreatic cancer

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is one of the most lethal malignant neoplasms of the digestive system. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are a novel type of non-protein coding transcripts that play an important role in pancreatic carcinogenesis. We herein aimed to meta-analyze the diagnostic and prognostic significance of lncRNA expression profiles in PC. A comprehensive retrieval of eligible studies was performed based on the online databases. Quantitative meta-analyses of the pooled diagnostic parameters and hazard ratios (HRs) were enabled by using standard statistical methods. A total of 16 studies comprising 1386 PC patients were included. The pooled effect sizes exhibited that lncRNA expression profile achieved a combined sensitivity of 0.82 (95% CI: 0.72-0.89), specificity of 0.77 (95% CI: 0.65-0.86) and AUC (area under curve) of 0.87 (95% CI: 0.83-0.89) in distinguishing patients with PC from noncancerous controls. Notably, abnormally expressed lncRNAs were markedly associated with unfavorable overall survival (OS) in PC (univariate analysis: HR = 1.52, 95% CI: 1.04-2.22, P = 0.031; multivariate analysis: HR = 1.55, 95% CI: 1.19-2.02, P = 0.001). Statistical significance was also observed in our stratified analyses grouped by clinicopathologic features. In conclusion, abnormal lncRNA expression profiles could be rated as promising biomarker(s) to enable diagnosis and predict the prognosis of PC.