Background: Studies have shown that miR-17-5p plays an important role in the development of cancer. The aim of this meta-analysis was to quantitatively analyze the association of miR-17-5p with prognosis in various cancers.
Materials and methods: We searched the PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and Cochrane library databases for relevant studies through August 2017. The prognostic data and clinico-pathological features of overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) were extracted to investigate the association between miR-17-5p expression and tumor prognosis. In addition, odds ratios (ORs) were used to assess the correlations between miR-17-5p expression and clinicopathological characteristics.
Results: A total of ten studies were incorporated into this systematic review, and we found that high miR-17-5p expression can predict poor OS for malignancies (combined hazard ratio [HR]=1.87; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.37-2.55; P=0.000) as well as poor DFS (combined HR=1.60; 95% CI, 1.05-2.44; P=0.027). Further subgroup analyses suggested that high miR-17-5p expression was related to poor OS in Asian patients (combined HR=1.92; 95% CI, 1.37-2.71; P=0.000) and the serum/plasma sample source subgroup (combined HR=2.13; 95% CI, 1.36-3.31; P=0.001). The combined OR indicated that the expression of miR-17-5p was associated with lymph node invasion (OR=1.28; 95% CI, 1.05-1.56; P=0.016) and venous invasion (OR=1.92; 95% CI, 1.40-2.63; P=0.000).
Conclusion: Elevated expression of miR-17-5p suggested a poor prognosis in cancer patients and may serve as a new tumor marker to monitor cancer development and progression.
Keywords: cancer; meta-analysis; miR-17-5p; prognosis.