Diagnostic value of RASSF1A hypermethylation in colorectal cancer: a meta-analysis

Purpose: Ras association domain family 1 isoform A (RASSF1A), a member of Ras association domain family, plays an important role in tumorigenesis. The goal of our meta-analysis was to assess the diagnostic value of RASSF1A hypermethylation in colorectal cancer (CRC). Methods: PubMed, Embase, CNKI and Wanfang databases were used to conduct literature selection. The association between RASSF1A methylation and CRC risk was evaluated by odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Summary receiver operating characteristics (SROC) test was used to estimate the diagnostic value of RASSF1A methylation for CRC. Results: A total of 22 articles among 1736 CRC and 811 non-tumor samples were included in the current meta analysis. Our results showed that RASSF1A hypermethylation was found more frequently in CRC than non-tumor samples (OR = 6.02, 95% CI = 4.57-7.93, P < 0.001). Our SROC test showed that RASSF1A hypermethylation had an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.71 with a pooled sensitivity of 0.33 (95% CI = 0.31-0.36), a pooled specificity of 0.86 (95% CI = 0.84-0.89), a positive-likelihood ratio of 3.18 (95% CI = 1.99-5.09), a negative likelihood ratio of 0.71 (95% CI = 0.63-0.80), and a diagnostic odds ratio of 5.53 (95% CI = 3.40-9.00). Data mining study indicated that a trend of increased RASSF1A expression was found in the CRC cell line C2C12 after 5-AZA treatment. Conclusions: Our study established that RASSF1A hypermethylation might have a potential value in the clinical diagnosis of CRC.