Abstract. The present study aimed to detect the expression of metastasis associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1) and microRNA (miR)-619-5p in colorectal carcinoma (CRC), and to evaluate the significance of MALAT1 and miR-619-5p expression in the clinical diagnosis and prognosis of CRC. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction was used to detect MALAT1 and miR-619-5p expression in 120 colorectal carcinoma and 120 adjacent normal tissue samples. The expression levels of MALAT1 and miR-619-5p were significantly different between colorectal carcinoma and adjacent normal tissues (P<0.05). MALAT1 exhibited an average 2.52-fold increase in colorectal adenoma when compared with adjacent normal tissues, while miR-619-5p exhibited an average 5.79-fold decrease in colorectal adenoma when compared with adjacent normal tissues. There was a significant difference between the MALAT1 expression in CRC tissues obtained from men and women (P=0.027), and in tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage II and stage III lesions (P=0.019). MALAT1 expression was associated with lymphovascular invasion (P=0.047) and perineural invasion (P=0.012). In addition, miR-619-5p expression was also significantly different between men and women (P=0.032), and between TNM stage II and stage III lesions (P=0.012). miR-619-5p expression was also associated with lymphovascular invasion (P=0.023) and perineural invasion (P=0.009). Patients with high expression of MALAT1 and low expression of miR-619-5p demonstrated significantly shorter disease-free survival (DFS) (P=0.002) and overall survival (OS) times (P=0.004) compared with patients with low MALAT1 expression and high miR-619-5p expression. Patients with perineural invasion demonstrated significantly shorter DFS (P=0.001) and OS times (P=0.003) compared with patients without perineural invasion. In addition, there was a negative correlation between MALAT1 expression and miR-619-5p expression (r=-0.415, P=0.004) in CRC tissues. In conclusion, MALAT1 and miR-619-5p have potential for the molecular diagnosis of CRC patients, and combined assaying of MALAT1 and miR-619-5p may improve the accuracy of the diagnosis of CRC and act as a good prognostic indicator in CRC patients.