Prognostic Role of MicroRNAs in Human Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Table 4

The pooled associations between different subgroups and prognosis of patients with NSCLC.

Subgroup	Number of patients	Number of studies	HR (95% CI)	value	Heterogeneity
					I-square
Overall effect	5553	32	1.59 (1.39–1.82)	<0.001	84.97%	<0.001
MicroRNAs
miR-21	2025	10	1.95 (1.40–2.72)	<0.001	88.05%	<0.001
miR-155	2047	9	1.33 (0.87–2.04)	<0.001	73.27%	<0.001
miR-let-7	1239	4	1.94 (0.87–4.32)	0.101	87.59%	<0.001
miR-148a	377	2	2.33 (0.80–6.71)	0.117	57.92%	0.123
miR-148b	380	2	2.28 (1.64–3.17)	<0.001	0.00	0.749
miRNA assay method
ISH	750	4	1.05 (0.58–1.87)	0.870	75.51%	0.007
Microarray/qRT-PCR	4803	28	1.63 (1.42–1.87)	<0.001	85.49%	<0.001
Analysis type
Multivariate	4785	28	1.54 (1.35–1.76)	<0.001	84.81%	<0.001
Univariate	768	4	2.29 (1.02–5.12)	0.043	72.34%	0.013
Source of miRNA
Paired Tissue	3999	20	1.67 (1.39–1.99)	<0.001	83.98%	<0.001
Blood	611	4	1.73 (1.13–2.65)	0.012	68.02%	0.025
Patient origin
Asia	3432	20	2.05 (1.66–2.53)	<0.001	78.85%	<0.001
Europe	662	6	1.24 (1.05–1.47)	0.011	61.28%	0.006
USA	1439	6	2.26 (1.81–2.83)	<0.001	0.00	0.946

ISH: in situ hybridization; qRT-PCR: quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction; HR: hazard ratio; CI: confidence intervals.