Prognostic value of decreased long non-coding RNA TUSC7 expression in some solid tumors: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Accumulating evidences indicated that tumor suppressor candidate 7 (TUSC7) is a putatively tumor suppressor gene in various tumors. We carried out current systematic review and meta-analysis to explore the decreased expression of TUSC7 associate with prognostic and clinicopathological characteristic in cancer patients. A literature collection search in the online electronic databases PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and CNKI was conducted to obtain eligible studies (up to February 20, 2017). A total of nine studies comprise 757 patients were identified and included in present meta-analysis based on the selection and inclusion criteria. Overall, low expression of TUSC7 was associated with significantly unfavorable overall survival (OS) (HR = 2.90, 95% CI: 2.12–3.98, P < 0.001), disease free survival (DFS) (HR = 2.00, 95% CI: 1.49–2.68, P < 0.001) and disease-specific survival (DSS) (HR = 2.57, 95% CI: 1.23–5.39, P = 0.012) in tumors patients. Moreover, we also found that down-regulation of TUSC7 associated with distant metastasis (OR = 2.85, 95% CI: 1.46–5.55, P = 0.002) and larger tumor size (OR = 0.41, 95% CI: 0.23–0.72, P = 0.002). Our meta-analysis demonstrated that cancers patients detected with low TUSC7 expression were more prone to develop distant metastasis. TUSC7 might act as a potentially and promising common prognostic markers in some solid tumors.