Diagnostic Value of Circulating microRNAs in Laryngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Abstract Background : Circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) play an important role in the biological processes of cancers and are promising biomarkers of cancer diagnosis. Objectives : To estimate the diagnostic value of microRNAs in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) patients, comparing with the non-LSCC controls. Population : Six eligible LSCC studies including 1,585 LSCC patients with corresponding 2,095 non-LSCC controls from years 2000 to 2017 were analyzed. Methods : Medline, Epub Ahead of Print, In-Process & Other Non-Indexed Citations, EMBASE, Cochrane Library and Web of Science were searched in this study. We conducted a meta-analysis to identify studies that reported the diagnostic data of miRNAs both in LSCC patients and controls. I n addition, we evaluated and compared the diagnostic value of upregulated miRNAs with downregulated miRNAs . Results : Six studies with corresponding specificity and sensitivity data were included in this study. The pooled sensitivity, specificity and AUC were 0.89 (95% CI: 0.79-0.94), 0.87 (95% CI: 0.77-0.93), and 0.94 (95% CI: 0.92-0.96), respectively. However, the heterogeneities of these studies were quite high, the value of I 2 for the pooled sensitivity, specificity were 96.82% and 97.08%, respectively. Subgroup analysis of upregulated and downregulated miRNAs showed a similar diagnostic value but the heterogeneity remained high. Publication bias was found in Funnel plot of pooled and upregulated miRNAs, while not obvious in downregulated miRNAs. Conclusions : Circulating miRNAs showed diagnostic significance in laryngeal cancer, however, the results of this meta-analysis revealed significant heterogeneity. Therefore, the diagnostic value of miRNAs in LSCC seems limited.