DNA hypermethylation is an important epigenetic mechanism for gene expression inactivation in head and neck cancer (HNC). Saliva has emerged as a novel liquid biopsy representing a potential source of biomarkers. We performed a comprehensive meta-analysis to evaluate the overall diagnostic accuracy of salivary DNA methylation for detecting HNC. PubMed EMBASE, Web of Science, LILACS, and the Cochrane Library were searched. Study quality was assessed by the Quality Assessment for Studies of Diagnostic Accuracy-2, and sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR), diagnostic odds ratio (dOR), and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using a bivariate random-effect meta-analysis model. Meta-regression and subgroup analyses were performed to assess heterogeneity. Eighty-four study units from 18 articles with 8368 subjects were included. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of salivary DNA methylation were 0.39 and 0.87, respectively, while PLR and NLR were 3.68 and 0.63, respectively. The overall area under the curve (AUC) was 0.81 and the dOR was 8.34. The combination of methylated genes showed higher diagnostic accuracy (AUC, 0.92 and dOR, 36.97) than individual gene analysis (AUC, 0.77 and dOR, 6.02). These findings provide evidence regarding the potential clinical application of salivary DNA methylation for HNC diagnosis.
Keywords: DNA methylation; biomarkers; epigenetics; head and neck cancer; liquid biopsy; meta-analysis; saliva.