Background and purpose: In the preoperative period, it is very important to accurately differentiate high-grade gliomas from intracranial metastases, as treatment strategies vary. Hence we performed a meta-analysis to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of peritumoural relative cerebral blood volume (rCBV) values derived from dynamic susceptibility contrast imaging (DSCI) in differentiating high-grade gliomas from intracranial metastases.
Materials and methods: Between 2004 and June 2014, relevant studies were searched from the databases of Medline and Embase for analysis. A total of 3 eligible studies were included in this analysis. Statistical analysis was performed with Meta-Disc 1.4.
Results: A total of 136 patients included in the rCBV analysis: 79 with high-grade glioma and 57 with metastasis. The pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (+LR), negative likelihood ratio (-LR) and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) for differentiating high-grade glioma from metastasis were 82% (95% CI 0.72-0.90), 96% (95% CI 0.88-1.00), 18.04 (95% CI 5.41-60.15), 0.19 (95% CI 0.12-0.31), and 90.20 (95% CI 23.10-352.27), respectively. The value of Cochran's Q of DOR was 0.78 (P = 0.6774), and I2 was 0.0%, revealing that no statistically significant between-study heterogeneity was found.
Conclusions: The results of this present study clearly present that the peritumoural rCBV values derived from DSCI could be used in distinguishing high-grade gliomas from intracranial metastases in the preoperative.
Keywords: Relative cerebral blood volume; dynamic susceptibility contrast imaging; high grade gliomas; meta-analysis; metastases.