Abstract: Objective To investigate the expression level and clinical significance of long chain non encoded lncRNA HOTA IR in non-small cell lung cancer （NSCLC）. Methods Ninety-one cases of NSCLC patients diagnosed by pathology from January 2010 to January 2013 in our hospital were enrolled. Ninety-one cases of surgical resected cancer tissues and 62 cases of paired adjacent tissue samples were collected. HOTAIR levels were detected by quantitative real-time PCR （QPCR） method. The relationship between HOTAIR level in NSCLC tissues and clinical pathological parameters （gender， age， TNM stage， tumor size， differentiation， lymph node metastasis， pathologic type and CEA level） were analyzed. The prognosis of different HOTAIR levels was analyzed according to the follow-up data. Results The relative level of HOTAIR in NSCLC tissues was 6.271±0.884， higher than that of adjacent cancer tissue with statistical significance （P＜0.05）. The expression of HOTAIR in NSCLC was not related to gender， age， degree of differentiation， pathological type and CEA abnormality， but related with TNM stage， tumor size and lymph node metastasis. The levels of HOTAIR in patients of TNM stage Ⅱ-Ⅲ， tumor size more than 3 cm or with lymph node metastasis were higher than those of corresponding items （P＜0.05）. The median overall survival（OS） of 91 patients was 36.4 months， unrelated with gender， age， degree of differentiation and serum CEA level， but related with TNM stage， tumor size， lymph node metastasis and HOTAIR expression. The median OS of patients with HOTAIR high-expression was 27.8 months， lower than 36.4 months of patients with low-expression with statistical significance （P＜0.05）. Multivariate analysis showed that TNM stage， tumor size， lymph node metastasis and HOTAIR expression were independent factors influencing the prognosis of NSCLC patients. Conclusion HOTAIR is highly expressed in NSCLC tissues， and it may be related to TNM stage， tumor size， lymph node metastasis and prognosis. It may paly a role in the occurrence and development of NSCLC.