Table 1.

Baseline characteristics of the eligible studies evaluating miR-21 expression and OS

Study & year	Cancer	Cancer type(system)	Sample size	Country	Stage	Age	Follow-up (months)	Comparisons	Cut off value	Method
Nagao 2012 [17]	PDAC	Other	79	Japan	I-IV	65	40	NG	Mean	qRT-PCR
Shibuya 2010 [31]	CRC	Digestive	156	Japan	*A-D	65	60	Normal tissues&	Mean	qRT-PCR
Gao 2010 [11]	NSCLC	Respiratory	47	China	I-III	64	60	Normal tissues	Median	qRT-PCR
Childs 2009 [32]	HNSCC	Other	104	USA	I-IV	60	60	Normal tissues	Mean	qRT-PCR
Yan 2008 [33]	BC	Breast	113	China	I-III	48	66.2	Normal tissues	Mean	qRT-PCR
Lee 2011 [35]	BC	Breast	109	Korea	I-III	48	100	NG	Mean	qRT-PCR
Jiang 2011 [36]	Melanoma	Other	106	China	I-IV	60	60	NG	Median	qRT-PCR
Zhi 2010 [37]	Astrocytoma	Other	124	China	I-IV	47.8	35.2	NG	Median	qRT-PCR
Jamieson 2012 [38]	PDAC	Other	58	UK	II,III	65	23.9	Normal tissues	Median	qRT-PCR
Schetter 2008 [39]	CRC	Digestive	84	USA	I-IV	64.6	68.0	Normal tissues	Highest tertile	qRT-PCR
Schetter 2008 [39]	CRC	Digestive	113	HK	I-IV	55.8	84.6	Normal tissues	Dichotomize	Microarray
Faltejskova 2012 [41]	CRC	Digestive	44	Czech	I-IV	67	84	Normal tissues	Median	qRT-PCR
Chen 2013 [42]	CRC	Digestive	195	Taiwan	I-IV	66	60	Normal tissues	Mean	qRT-PCR
Toiyama 2013 [43]	CRC	Digestive	186	Japan	I-IV	67	60	Normal tissues	0.0031	qRT-PCR
Markou 2008 [13]	NSCLC	Respiratory	48	USA	I-IV	60	50	Healthy controls	2-fold	qRT-PCR
Liu2012 [44]	NSCLC	Respiratory	70	China	I-IV	60	30	Healthy controls	2-fold	qRT-PCR
Saito2011 [45]	NSCLC	Respiratory	89	USA	I-III	63.6	80	Normal tissues	Median	qRT-PCR
Saito2011 [45]	NSCLC	Respiratory	37	Norway	I-III	64.4	80	Normal tissues	Median	qRT-PCR
Saito2011 [45]	NSCLC	Respiratory	191	Japan	I-III	59.6	80	Normal tissues	Median	qRT-PCR
Markou 2013 [46]	NSCLC	Respiratory	48	Greece	I-IV	60	40	Normal tissues	6.3-fold	qRT-PCR
Wu2013 [56]	Glioma	Other	152	China	I-IV	45.1	60	Normal tissues	Mean	qRT-PCR
Papaconstantinou2012 [57]	PC	Other	88	Greece	I-IV	66.5	40	Normal tissues	Mean	qRT-PCR
Karakatsanis2011 [48]	HCC	Digestive	60	Greece	I-IV	60	50	Healthy controls	Mean	qRT-PCR
Kadera2013 [49]	PDAC	Other	153	USA	I, II,IV	65	42	Healthy controls	Median	ISH
Markou 2014 [58]	BC	Breast	112	Greece		60	75	Normal tissues	Median	qRT-PCR
Akagi2013 [50]	LC	Respiratory	67	USA	I	64.9	60	Normal tissues	Median	qRT-PCR
Akagi2013 [50]	LC	Respiratory	25	Norway	I	64.0	60	Normal tissues	Median	qRT-PCR
Bovell2013 [51]	CC	Digestive	345	USA	IV	65	17	Normal tissues	Mean	qRT-PCR
Capodanno 2013 [52]	NSCLC	Respiratory	80	Italy	I-IV	67	32	Normal tissues	Median	qRT-PCR
Faragalla2012 [53]	RCC	Digestive	121	Canada	I-III	62.4	52.8	Normal tissues	40th percentile	qRT-PCR
Mathe 2009 [55]	ESCC	Digestive	69	Two countries	I-IV	62	62.5	Normal tissues	Dichotomize	qRT-PCR

Abbreviations: PDAC pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, CRC colorectal cancer, NSCLC non-small cell lung cancer, HNSCC head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, CC colon cancer, RC rectal cancer, HCC hepatocellular carcinoma, ESCC oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma, BC breast cancer, PC pancreatic cancer, RCC renal cell carcinoma, ^*Duke’s stage, ISH In Situ Hybridization, NG Not given, &Adjacent noncancerous tissues were procured from patients.