Background: Osteopontin has been viewed as a promising biomarker for malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM); however, the conclusions of various studies on diagnostic accuracy of osteopontin have not been consistent. The aim of this study was to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of circulating osteopontin for MPM.
Methods: Using appropriate key words, scientific literature that evaluated circulating levels of osteopontin for the diagnosis of MPM was retrieved from electronic databases. Only articles published in English till March 26, 2013 were included in this study. The quality of the studies was assessed using the revised Quality Assessment for Studies of Diagnostic Accuracy (QUADAS-2) tools. The random-effects models were applied for analysing the performance of pooled characteristics.
Results: Six studies were included in the analysis. The overall diagnostic sensitivity and specificity were 0.65 (95% CI: 0.60-0.70) and 0.81 (95% CI: 0.78-0.85), respectively. The area under summary receiver operating characteristic (sROC) curves (AUC) was 0.83. The diagnostic accuracy of serum and plasma osteopontin was comparable.
Conclusions: Osteopontin is an effective marker for MPM diagnosis. However, more studies with a larger sample size and better design are needed to rigorously assess the diagnostic power of osteopontin.
Keywords: Diagnostic accuracy; Malignant pleural mesothelioma; Meta-analysis; Osteopontin; Systematic review.
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