The Significance of Long Noncoding RNA H19 in Predicting Progression and Metastasis of Cancers: A Meta-Analysis

Recently, numerous studies indicate that H19 plays a key role in tumorigenesis, but the results have been disputed, especially in the aspects of tumor progression and metastasis. Therefore, we performed this meta-analysis to systematically summarize the relationship between H19 and cancers. We searched PubMed, the Cochrane Library, CNKI, and Chinese Wan Fang to identify eligible studies. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were calculated to assess the effect size. A total of 13 studies were enrolled in this meta-analysis, which was performed by Revman5.3 and Stata11.0 software. Our meta-analysis showed that the expression of H19 was associated with distant metastasis in nongastrointestinal tumors (OR = 3.85, 95% CI = 1.31–11.36, P = 0.01) and, in gastrointestinal tumors (OR = 0.34, 95% CI = 0.15–0.78, P = 0.01), lymph node metastasis (OR = 2.04, 95% CI = 1.19–3.48, P = 0.009). Moreover, in gastric cancer, H19 expression was significantly related to histological grade (OR = 0.50, 95% CI = 0.29–0.86, P = 0.01), TNM stage (OR = 0.19, 95% CI = 0.11–0.33, P < 0.01), and tumor invasion depth (OR = 0.11, 95% CI = 0.04–0.27, P < 0.01). Therefore, H19 could serve as a potential marker for progression and metastasis evaluation of cancers.