ABSTRACT: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are playing important roles in cancer progression and metastasis. Recent studies have demonstrated that the lncRNA, nuclear paraspeckle assembly transcript 1 (NEAT1), was aberrantly up-regulated in various types of cancers and was reported to be associated with unfavorable prognosis in cancer patients. This study examined the relationship between NEAT1 and relevant clinical outcomes.A total of 1354 patients from 11 eligible studies were included in the meta-analysis. The results showed that high expression level of NEAT1 was significantly associated with shorter overall survival in cancer patients (hazard ratio (HR) = 1.53, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.36-1.71); in the subgroup analysis, the positive association was also found in patients with hepato-gastroenterol cancers (HR = 1.79, 95% CI = 1.48-2.16), non-small cell lung cancer (HR = 1.35, 95% CI = 1.04-1.76), ovarian cancer (HR = 1.41, 95% CI = 1.11-1.79) and other types of cancers (HR = 1.42, 95% CI = 1.11-1.81). The clinicopathological parameters analysis further showed that increased expression level of NEAT1 was positively correlated with larger tumor size (odds ratio (OR) = 1.74, 95% CI = 1.26-2.41), lymph node metastasis (OR = 2.29, 95% CI = 1.71-3.06), advanced TNM stage (OR = 3.60, 95% CI = 2.27-5.72), poor tumor differentiation (OR = 2.16, 95% CI = 1.58-2.93), distant metastasis (OR = 3.51, 95% CI = 1.75-7.01), and invasion depth (OR = 1.94, 95% CI = 1.36-2.75).A comprehensive search was performed in Pubmed, Embase, Web of Science and CNKI databases, and eligible studies were included based on defined exclusion and inclusion criteria to perform meta-analysis.The meta-analysis results from present study suggested that increased expression level of NEAT1 was associated with unfavorable prognosis and may serve as a predictive factor for clinicopathological features in various cancers.