Long noncoding RNA AFAP1-AS1, a potential novel biomarker to predict the clinical outcome of cancer patients: a meta-analysis

A number of studies have demonstrated that the expression level of actin filament-associated protein 1 antisense RNA 1 (AFAP1-AS1) was upregulated in various cancers. High expression of AFAP1-AS1 is associated with an increased risk of metastasis and a poor prognosis in cancer patients. The electronic search was conducted in PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Wanfang database. We collected relevant articles to explore the association between the expression levels of AFAP1-AS1 and lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis, overall survival, relapse-free survival, and progression-free survival. A total of 1,017 patients from eight studies were finally included. The results showed that cancer patients with high AFAP1-AS1 expression suffered an increased risk of developing lymph node metastasis (odds ratio =3.19, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.11–4.83, P<0.00001) and distant metastasis (odds ratio =3.05, 95% CI: 1.84–5.04, P<0.0001). Moreover, we found that patients with high AFAP1-AS1 expression also had a poorer overall survival (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.98, 95% CI: 1.57–2.38, P=0.000), a worse progression-free survival (HR: 1.73, 95% CI: 1.11–2.35, P=0.000), and a shorter recurrence-free survival (HR: 1.96, 95% CI: 1.02–2.90, P=0.000) than those with low AFAP1-AS1 expression. High expression of AFAP1-AS1 was associated with poor clinical outcome. AFAP1-AS1 might serve as a potential novel biomarker for indicating the clinical outcomes in human cancers.