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A blood-based biomarker assay is a non-invasive way to screen that can identify lung cancer at an earlier stage to improve the clinical outcome. MALAT1 is a broadly expressed, long non-coding RNA in human tissues and is overexpressed in numerous human carcinomas. The potential of MALAT1 in the whole blood of lung cancer was evaluated. In the present study, blood samples of patients with lung cancer and healthy volunteers (controls) were recruited and analyzed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) for MALAT1 expression and clinicopathological data. Lung cancer tissues were also analyzed by qPCR. The expression of MALAT1 in the whole blood of lung cancer was lower compared to the control. The area under the receiver operator curve was 0.718 (P<0.001). Relatively, the expression of MALAT1 was stronger in the whole blood of lung cancer with metastasis compared to non-metastasis. Additionally, the whole blood with bone or brain metastasis exhibited a higher expression of MALAT1 compared to the blood with lymph node or pleura metastasis. Subsequently, a lower expression of MALAT1 was detected in metastatic lymph node tissues than that of the carcinoma in situ of the lung. Taken together, these results indicate that MALAT1 as a biomarker to screen lung cancer may represent a host response to lung cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]