The present study was undertaken to evaluate the performance of intestinal fatty-acid-binding protein (i-FABP) in the diagnosis of newborn necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and prediction of surgical NEC. A comprehensive literature search was performed in PubMed and EMBASE to identify potential relevant studies. QUADAS-2 tool was used to assess the quality of the included studies. The sensitivity, specificity and other measurements of accuracy of i-FABP were pooled. Summary receiver operating characteristic curves (SROC) and area under the curve (AUC) were used to summarize overall diagnostic performance. After screening 150 titles and abstracts, followed by 32 full-text publications, 14 studies were included. The sample size, sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) and AUC were: plasma i-FABP 217, 0.64(95% CI 0.53 to 0.74), 0.91(95% CI 0.84 to 0.95), 14.22 (95%CI 6.42 to 31.52) and 0.84; urinary i-FABP 211, 0.64(95% CI 0.53 to 0.74), 0.73(95% CI 0.64 to 0.80), 6.35 (95%CI 3.17 to 12.72) and 0.81; urinary i-FABP/Cr 165, 0.78(95% CI 0.65 to 0.88), 0.75(95% CI 0.65 to 0.82), 6.35 (95%CI 3.17 to 12.72) and 0.81; plasma i-FABP for surgical NEC 45, 0.71(95% CI 0.51 to 0.87), 0.76(95% CI 0.50 to 0.93), 7.58 (95%CI 0.87 to 65.82) and 0.80. Plasma i-FABP is a promising biomarker in the diagnosis of NEC with high specificity and DOR; but its usefulness is limited because of medium sensitivity. The urinary i-FABP and urinary i-FABP/Cr add little value in the diagnosis. The findings were somewhat limited by the quality and small size of some of the studies included.
Keywords: Diagnostic accuracy; Intestinal fatty-acid-binding protein; Meta-analysis; Necrotizing enterocolitis; Systematic review.