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Circular RNAs are a class of RNAs with a covalently closed configuration, and several members of them have been reported to be capable of regulating various biological processes and predicting the outcome of disease. Among them, circular RNA circ-ITCH has been identified to be aberrantly expressed and associated with disease progression in diverse cancers. However, the correlation of circ-ITCH expression with clinicopathological features, as well as the prognosis of cancers, remains inconclusive. Therefore, a meta-analysis was performed to investigate the clinical significance of circ-ITCH in cancers by systematically summarizing all eligible literatures. Up to August 31, 2020, relevant articles were searched in PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane library, Embase, CNKI, and Wanfang databases. Pooled hazard ratios (HRs) and odds ratios (ORs) with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated. A total of 1604 patients from 14 studies were included in this meta-analysis. The results showed that cancer patients with low circ-ITCH expression were more susceptible to develop lymph node metastasis (OR = 2.25, 95% CI: 1.67-3.02, p ≤ 0.01), larger tumor size (OR = 3.01, 95% CI: 2.01-4.52, p ≤ 0.01), advanced TNM stage (OR = 2.82, 95% CI: 1.92-4.14, p ≤ 0.01), and poor overall survival (OS) (HR = 2.45, 95% CI: 2.07-2.90, p ≤ 0.01, univariate analysis; HR = 2.69, 95% CI: 1.82-3.96, p ≤ 0.01, multivariate analysis). Thus, low circ-ITCH expression was significantly associated with aggressive clinicopathological features and unfavorable outcome in various cancers. Therefore, circ-ITCH may serve as a molecular therapy target and a prognostic marker in human cancers., Competing Interests: All the authors declared no conflicts of interests in this work., (Copyright © 2021 Xiao-Dong Sun et al.)

Purpose . Urothelial carcinoma-associated 1 (UCA1) has been reported to be overexpressed and correlated with progression in various cancers. However, the association between UCA1 expression and some clinicopathological features of digestive system malignancies, such as metastasis and survival, remains inconclusive. Therefore, a meta-analysis was performed to investigate the clinical significance of UCA1 in digestive system malignancies. Methods . Relevant literatures were searched in PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and Embase databases updated to May 2016. Results . A total of 1089 patients from 10 studies were included in this meta-analysis. Meta-analysis results showed that digestive system malignancy patients with UCA1 overexpression were significantly more susceptible to developing lymph node metastasis (LNM) (OR = 1.85, 95% CI: 1.28-2.67) and distant metastasis (DM) (OR = 3.14, 95% CI: 1.77-5.58) and suffer from poor overall survival (OS) (HR = 2.31, 95% CI: 1.89-2.82, univariate analysis; HR = 2.24, 95% CI: 1.69-2.98, multivariate analysis) and poor disease-free survival (DFS) (HR = 2.65, 95% CI: 1.59-4.43, univariate analysis; HR = 2.50, 95% CI: 1.62-3.86, multivariate analysis). Conclusion . UCA1 overexpression was correlated with LNM, DM, poor OS, and poor DFS. UCA1 may serve as an indicator for metastasis and poor prognosis in digestive system malignancies., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

This study aims to investigate the prognostic value of neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients treated with liver transplantation (LT) through meta-analysis. Relevant articles were sought in PubMed, Embase, and Wangfang databases up to July 2015. A total of 1687 patients from 10 studies were included in this meta-analysis. Meta-analysis results showed that elevated NLR was significantly associated with poorer overall survival (OS) (HR = 2.71, 95% CI: 1.91-3.83) and poorer disease-free survival (DFS) (HR = 3.61, 95% CI: 2.23-5.84) in HCC patients treated with LT. Moreover, subgroup analysis showed the significant association between elevated preoperative NLR and poor prognosis was not altered by cutoff values of NLR or types of LT. Therefore, elevated preoperative NLR is associated with poor prognosis in HCC patients treated with LT. Preoperative NLR should be used to predict the prognosis of HCC after LT in our clinical work.