Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the clinical value of serum B7 homologous body 4 (B7-H4) protein detection for the diagnosis of ovarian cancer (OC) in Chinese Han women by pooling published data.
Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted in Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMBASE, Wanfang, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure databases. The bivariate model was utilized to calculate the pooled estimates. Publication bias was assessed by using funnel plots and Deek's test.
Results: After the review, ten publications were found to meet our inclusion criteria. The overall diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of B7-H4 in OC were 0.782 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.732-0.825) and 0.870 (95% CI: 0.804-0.916), respectively. The area under summary receiver operating characteristic curves was 0.86 (95% CI: 0.83-0.89). No significant publication bias was observed in the included studies.
Conclusion: Serum B7-H4 detection, either alone or in combination with carbohydrate antigen 125, has an acceptable value in the diagnosis of OC.
Keywords: B7 homologous body 4; carbohydrate antigen 125; diagnosis; meta-analysis; ovarian cancer.