High BANCR expression is associated with worse prognosis in human malignant carcinomas: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: BRAF-activated noncoding RNA (BANCR) is aberrantly expressed in various tumor tissues and has been confirmed to function as a tumor suppressor or oncogene in many types of cancers. Considering the conflicting results and insufficient sampling, a meta-analysis was performed to explore the prognostic value of BANCR in various carcinomas. METHODS: A comprehensive literature search of PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, Cochrane Library and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) was conducted to collect relevant articles. RESULTS: The pooled results showed a strong relationship between high BANCR expression and poor overall survival (OS) (HR (hazard ratio) =1.60, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.19–2.15, P = 0.002) and recurrence-free survival (RFS) (HR = 1.53, 95% CI: 1.27–1.85, P < 0.00001). In addition, high BANCR expression predicted advanced tumor stage (OR (odds ratio) =2.39, 95% CI: 1.26–4.53, P = 0.008), presence of lymph node metastasis (OR = 2.03, 95% CI: 1.08–3.83, P = 0.03), positive distant metastasis (OR = 3.08, 95% CI: 1.92–4.96, P < 0.00001) and larger tumor sizes (OR = 1.63, 95% CI: 1.09–2.46, P = 0.02). However, no associations were found for smoking status (OR = 1.01, 95% CI: 0.65–1.56, P = 0.98), age (OR = 0.88, 95% CI: 0.71–1.09, P = 0.236) and sex (OR = 0.91, 95% CI: 0.72–1.16, P = 0.469). The sensitivity analysis of OS showed that the results of each publication were almost consistent with the combined results, and the merged results have high robustness and reliability. CONCLUSIONS: The results showed that elevated BANCR expression was associated with unfavorable prognosis for most cancer patients, and BANCR could serve as a promising therapeutic target and independent prognostic predictor in most of cancer types.