Prognostic value of lncRNA SOX2OT for Chinese cancer patients: A meta-analysis

SOX2OT has been demonstrated to be aberrantly expressed in several types of cancer and maybe serve as a prognostic marker for cancer patients. However, most individual studies have been limited by small sample sizes and controversial results. Therefore, the present meta-analysis was conducted to analyze available data to reveal the potential clinical application of SOX2OT on cancer prognosis, tumor progression, distance metastasis and lymph node metastasis. Up to February 20, 2017, literature collections were conducted by comprehensive searching electronic databases, including Cochrane Library, PubMed, Embase, BioMed Central, Springer, ScienceDirect, ISI Web of Knowledge, together with three Chinese databases: China National Knowledge Internet (CNKI), Weipu and Wanfang. The hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were calculated to assess the strength of the association. Five studies with a total of 481 cancer patients were included in the present meta-analysis. The results indicated that elevated SOX2OT significantly predicted unfavorable overall survival (OS) (HR = 2.44, 95% CI: 1.75-3.39, P<0.0001) and tumor progression (III/IV vs. I/II: HR 1.62, 95% CI: 1.30-2.02, P<0.0001), but failed to predict distant metastasis (HR: 3.30, 95% CI: 0.74-14.61, P = 0.12) and lymph node metastasis (HR: 1.29, 95% CI: 0.87-1.91, P = 0.21). The results revealed that SOX2OT expression level was an independent prognostic biomarker for OS and tumor progression in Chinese cancer patients.