High expression of AFAP1-AS1 is associated with poor prognosis of digestive system cancers: A meta-analysis

Actin filament-associated protein 1 antisense RNA 1 (AFAP1-AS1) is associated with prognosis in many cancers. The aim of this study was to systematically evaluate the potential correlation between AFAP1-AS1 and the prognosis of digestive system cancers (DSC).

EMBASE, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, PubMed, Wanfang Data (Chinese), and CNKI (Chinese) were comprehensively searched for literature published from the establishment of the database to September 2021.All case-control studies that met the inclusion criteria were retrieved; additionally manual retrieval and literature tracing was performed. After extracting the relevant data, Revman 5.3.5 software was used for meta-analysis.

Eighteen studies were included in analyses, high expression of AFAP1-AS1 was significantly correlated with poor prognosis in DSC, including overall survival (HR = 1.93, 95% CI: 1.72-2.17, P < .001) and disease-free survival/progression-free survival (HR = 1.87, 95% CI: 1.56-2.26, P < .001). In addition, the expression of AFAP1-AS1 was significantly correlated with tumor size, tumor stage, and lymph node metastasis.

High expression of AFAP1-AS1 was associated with poor prognosis in DSC. Therefore, it could be used as a potential marker for evaluating prognosis in DSC.