The Prognostic Value of lncRNA SNHG3 in Cancer Patients: A meta-analysis

Abstract Background:Small nucleolar RNA host gene 3 (SNHG3) is a promising long non-coding RNA that may possess prognostic value for different types of tumors. The objective of this meta-analysis is to evaluate the prognostic value of lncRNA SNHG3 in cancer patients.Methods:A systematic literature search of the PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, Medline, Web of Science, CNKI, Weipu, and Wanfang electronic databases was carried out in this meta-anaysis. The synthetic hazard ratios (HRs) or odd ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were obtained to determine the prognostic and clinicopathological significance of SNHG3 expression in tumors. Results:The final meta-anaysis included 17 studies that contained 2072 patients. The pooled results provided evidence that SNHG3 overexpression predicted reduced overall survival (OS) (HR=2.15, 95%CI: 1.76–2.63, P<0.00001), recurrence-free survival (RFS) ( HR=2.22, 95%CI: 1.04–4.76, P=0.04) and disease-free survival (DFS) (HR=2.04, 95%CI: 1.35–3.09, P=0.0007) for various cancers. Additionally, the SNHG3 overexpression was concerned with tumor node metastasis (TNM) stage (III/IV vs. I/II, OR=2.91, 95%CI: 1.60–5.29, P=0.0005), lymph node metastasis (LNM) (positive vs negative, OR=5.00,95%CI:2.82–8.87,P＜0.00001), distant metastasis (DM) (positive vs negative, OR=2.29, 95%CI: 1.52–3.47, P<0.0001) and tumor size (larger vs smaller, OR=1.80, 95%CI: 1.04–3.11, P=0.04).Conclusions:Our results indicated that SNHG3 overexpression was closely correlated with shorter OS in multiple cancer types, suggesting that SNHG3 might function as a promising predictor for clinical outcomes in cancer.