The expression of circRNAs as a promising biomarker in the diagnosis and prognosis of human cancers: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

BackgroundCircRNAs, a type of non-coding RNAs with special loop structure, of which the aberrant expression is closely related to tumor growth, proliferation, metastasis and recurrence. It remains unclear whether they have the potential to be biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis of cancers. The study aims to clarify the relationship of circRNAs expression with cancers diagnosis and prognosis.Materials and MethodsSensitivity, specificity, area under curve (AUC) and receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) were calculated to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy; Hazard ratio (HR) of overall survival (OS), disease free survival (DFS) and recurrence free survival (RFS) were calculated to evaluate the association between circRNAs expression and survival of cancer patients.ResultsA total of 27 studies were involved in the meta-analysis, including 16 diagnostic and 11 prognostic articles. Among the diagnostic studies, 18 kinds of circRNAs had been investigated, in which 3 were up regulated and 15 were down regulated. Their pooled sensitivity, specificity and AUC were 0.71(0.65–0.77), 0.77(0.72–0.81) and 0.81(0.77–0.84), respectively. In stratified analysis, a higher specificity was shown in circRNAs for diagnosing gastric cancer and hepatocellular cancer. 12 circRNAs were involved in the prognostic studies, including 6 up-regulated and 6 down-regulated circRNAs. Their overall HR of OS and DFS/RFS were 1.37(0.98–1.75) and 2.28 (0.77–3.79), respectively.ConclusionsCircRNAs have the potential to be biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis of cancers. Further investigations are still needed to explore the clinical value of circRNAs as tumor markers.

<p>CircRNA hsa_circ_0087862 Acts as an Oncogene in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer by Targeting miR-1253/RAB3D Axis</p>

“…Currently, studies have found that circRNAs are closely related to the prognosis of some human malignant tumors and involved in several tumors progression. 17,18 This paper demonstrated that hsa_circ_0087862 was significantly up-regulated in NSCLC. High hsa_circ_0087862 expression was prominently associated with poor outcome of NSCLC patients.…”

“…This is significantly correlated with clinical manifestations such as tumor occurrence, stage and distant metastasis. 17,19 circRNAs are expected to become new tumor markers and therapeutic targets for human tumors. Data from this research illustrated that miR-1253 was tumor suppressor gene in NSCLC and its expression was down-regulated by hsa_circ_0087862.…”

Prognostic and diagnostic significance of circRNAs expression in hepatocellular carcinoma patients: A meta‐analysis

“…During the computerized study search, we found two previous meta‐analysis by Wang et al and Ding et al that detected the association between circRNAs and cancer. A great many differences existed among these studies.…”

Prognostic and diagnostic value of circRNAs expression in colorectal carcinoma: a meta-analysis

“…In previous meta-analysis, only five meta-analysis [32][33][34][35][36] detected the association between the circRNAs and carcinoma. However, in the studies of wang et al, Chen et al and Li et al [32,33,34], only one study was included to investigate the relationship between the circRNAs and CRC.…”

“…However, in the studies of wang et al, Chen et al and Li et al [32,33,34], only one study was included to investigate the relationship between the circRNAs and CRC. Li et al and Ding et al [35,36] assessed the diagnosis value of circRNAs for human cancers, in which five articles were included to investigate the diagnostic value of circRNAs for CRC, whereas they failed to discuss the role of circRNAs for CRC patients. In the present study, we collected all the relevant articles published to date and performed the meta-analysis including nineteen articles in 1307 CRC patients.…”