Prognostic, Diagnostic, and Clinicopathological Significance of Circular RNAs in Pancreatic Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Li, Jiajia Ye, Ziping Hu, Xiaolin Hou, Sicong Hang, Qinglei
Editor	Mok, Samuel C.
Copyright Year	2022
Abstract	Simple SummaryGrowing evidence shows that circRNAs are closely associated with the clinicopathological characteristics of pancreatic cancer (PC) patients and might facilitate the early diagnosis and prediction of prognosis after surgery. In this study, we reviewed a total of 48 studies to examine the clinical value of circRNAs in PC. We found that differentially expressed circRNAs are significantly correlated with the prognosis and clinicopathological features of PC patients and could assist the diagnosis, suggesting circRNAs as potent biomarkers in PC.AbstractPancreatic cancer (PC) is a highly aggressive malignant tumor with a high mortality rate. It is urgent to find optimal molecular targets for the early diagnosis and treatment of PC. Here, we aimed to systematically analyze the prognostic, diagnostic, and clinicopathological significance of circular RNAs (circRNAs) in PC. Relevant studies were screened through PubMed, Web of Science, and other databases. The prognostic value of PC-associated circRNAs was assessed using the composite hazard ratio (HR), the diagnostic performance was assessed using the area under the summary receiver operator characteristic (SROC) curve (AUC), and the correlation with clinicopathological characteristics using the composite odds ratio (OR) was explored. In our study, 48 studies were included: 34 for prognosis, 11 for diagnosis, and 30 for correlation with clinicopathological characteristics. For prognosis, upregulated circRNAs were associated with poorer overall survival (OS) (HR = 2.02) and disease-free survival/progression-free survival (HR = 1.84) while downregulated circRNAs were associated with longer OS (HR = 0.55). Notably, the combination of circRNAs, including hsa_circ_0064288, hsa_circ_0000234, hsa_circ_0004680, hsa_circ_0071036, hsa_circ_0000677, and hsa_circ_0001460, was associated with worse OS (HR = 2.35). For diagnosis, the AUC was 0.83, and the pooled sensitivity and specificity were 0.79 and 0.73, respectively. For clinicopathologic characteristics, upregulated circRNAs were associated with poorer tumor differentiation, more nerve and vascular invasion, higher T stage, lymphatic metastasis, distant metastasis, advanced TNM stage, and higher preoperative CA19-9 level. In contrast, downregulated circRNAs were negatively associated with PC differentiation and lymphatic metastasis. Overall, our results showed that circRNAs are closely related to the prognosis and clinicopathological characteristics of PC patients and could be utilized for early diagnosis; thus, they are promising biomarkers for clinical application in PC.
Journal	Cancers
Volume Number	14
PubMed Central reference number	PMC9777076
Issue Number	24
PubMed reference number	36551673
e-ISSN	20726694
DOI	10.3390/cancers14246187
Language	English
Publisher	MDPI
Publisher Date	2022-12-14
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). © 2022 by the authors.
Subject Keyword	prognosis diagnosis clinicopathological characteristics circular RNAs pancreatic cancer meta-analysis
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Oncology Cancer Research