Liao Qi-Bin, Guo Jin-Qiang, Zheng Xue-Yan, Zhou Zhi-Feng, Li Hua, Lai Xiao-Ying, Ye Ju-Feng
1 Experimental Teaching Center of Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Southern Medical University , Guangzhou, People's Republic of China .
Genet Test Mol Biomarkers. 2014 Aug;18(8):562-7. doi: 10.1089/gtmb.2014.0005. Epub 2014 Jun 3.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Early detection and precise diagnosis are critical for the patients with lung cancer. Increasing evidence has suggested that microRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles in the diagnosis of lung cancer. To evaluate the overall diagnostic performance of sputum miRNAs for the detection of lung cancer, a meta-analysis was performed.
A systematic search for published literature evaluating the diagnostic accuracy of sputum miRNAs in lung cancer was performed to determine pooled sensitivity and specificity. A summary receiver operating characteristic curve was constructed to assess the overall test performance. Subgroup analysis was utilized to explore potential sources of heterogeneity in the included studies.
Eight studies with a total of 514 patients and 491 controls were included in this meta-analysis. Sputum miRNAs had a pooled sensitivity of 0.70 (95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 0.66-0.70) and a pooled specificity of 0.89 (95% CI: 0.86-0.91) for the detection of lung cancer, with an area under the summary receiver operating characteristics curve of 0.83. Significant interstudy heterogeneity for specificity was observed, with miRNA profiles being a possible source.
Sputum miRNAs are potentially useful noninvasive markers for diagnosis of lung cancer. The diagnostic specificity of sputum miRNAs may be influenced by the miRNA profiles. It would be important for further work to evaluate the generalizability of our results by methodologically rigorous studies on a well-defined patient population.
肺癌是全球癌症相关死亡的主要原因。早期检测和精确诊断对肺癌患者至关重要。越来越多的证据表明，微小RNA（miRNA）在肺癌诊断中发挥重要作用。为了评估痰液miRNA检测肺癌的总体诊断性能，进行了一项荟萃分析。
系统检索已发表的评估痰液miRNA在肺癌中诊断准确性的文献，以确定合并敏感性和特异性。构建汇总的受试者工作特征曲线以评估总体检测性能。采用亚组分析探索纳入研究中潜在的异质性来源。
本荟萃分析纳入了8项研究，共514例患者和491例对照。痰液miRNA检测肺癌的合并敏感性为0.70（95%置信区间[95%CI]：0.66 - 0.70），合并特异性为0.89（95%CI：0.86 - 0.91），汇总受试者工作特征曲线下面积为0.83。观察到研究间特异性存在显著异质性，miRNA谱可能是一个来源。
痰液miRNA可能是用于肺癌诊断的有用非侵入性标志物。痰液miRNA的诊断特异性可能受miRNA谱影响。通过对明确界定的患者群体进行方法学严谨的研究来评估我们结果的可推广性，对进一步的工作很重要。
