Circulating biomarker for malignant pleural mesothelioma diagnosis: pay attention to study design

Diagnostic accuracy of N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide for Kawasaki disease: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to investigate the diagnostic accuracy of circulating N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) for Kawasaki disease (KD).

METHODS

We searched the PubMed, Web of Science and EMBASE databases to identify the eligible studies investigating the diagnostic accuracy of NT-proBNP for KD. The revised tool for the quality assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies (QUADAS-2) was used to evaluate the eligible studies' quality. A meta-analysis was performed with the bivariate model and summary receiver operating characteristic (sROC) curve. We also performed subgroup, publication bias and sensitivity analyses.

RESULTS

We included 12 studies with 2173 KDs and 1909 control. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of eligible studies were 0.80 (95%CI: 0.72-0.86) and 0.81 (95%CI: 0.73-0.88), respectively. The area under sROC curve was 0.88 (95%CI: 0.84-0.90). Patient selection bias and partial verification bias were the major design weakness of the eligible studies. Sensitivity analysis revealed that the results of this meta-analysis were robust. Subgroup analysis revealed that study design, NT-proBNP assay and participants' body temperature were not the source of heterogeneity across all eligible studies. No publication bias was observed.

CONCLUSION

NT-proBNP has moderate diagnostic accuracy for KD. It cannot be used for ruling in or ruling out KD when used alone.

Diagnostic value of microRNAs for malignant pleural mesothelioma: A mini-review

Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a type of cancer originating from the pleura with high aggressiveness and poor prognosis. A timely diagnosis is crucial to improve its prognosis. Laboratory biomarkers have significant advantages of reduced invasiveness, low cost, and are observer‐independent, and therefore represent a promising diagnostic tool for MPM. MicroRNA is a family of non‐coding RNA that regulates gene expression at the post‐transcriptional level. Accumulated studies showed that microRNA, either in tissue, circulating, and body fluid, has potential diagnostic value for various disorders. Here, we reviewed the diagnostic value of microRNA for MPM.

"One-gate" design should be used for the study of the diagnostic efficacy of biological markers

1. The first draft of this article proposes "Please authors answer a question: was there only 43 patients with diagnosed gastric cancer from April 2018 to July 2018?" Is it to know whether the researchers chose 43 patients because of fewer cases or intentionally fewer? The reviewer's "response reviewers" admitted "it's better to add a benign disease group" and "chose 43 patients with diagnosed gastric cancer randomly for our validation," which confirmed my opinion "have design flaws both in enroll subjects and the number of cases". So after getting the reply from the original author, I deleted the above sentence. This time amend "43 patients" on line 43 to "43 patients which random selection rather than all patients in the study time window". 2. Some revision has been highlighted in red. 3. We re-edit the article sentence by sentence in English to make it more in line with the English expression.

Suggestions for designing studies investigating diagnostic accuracy of biomarkers

The number of diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) studies concerning biomarkers have gradually increased during the past years. However, study designs remain imperfect, and the statistical methods used are not meaningful in some published studies. Here, we introduce recommendations for designing DTA studies, including consecutive enrollment of participants with uniform inclusion and exclusion criteria, blinded testing and interpretation, prespecified thresholds, and the use of one reference standard for all subjects. In addition, we also describe more relevant statistical methods in DTA studies, including decision curve analysis (DCA), nomograms, diagnostic model and scale, net reclassification index (NRI), and the integrated discriminatory index (IDI). This review may help clinicians to better design DTA studies that investigating biomarkers.

Diagnostic accuracy of human epididymis secretory protein 4 for lung cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background

Several studies have assessed the diagnostic accuracy of serum human epididymis secretory protein 4 (HE4) for lung cancer, but their results were heterogeneous. The aim of this study was to systematically review the available studies and pool their results using meta-analysis.

Methods

PubMed, EMBASE and Web of Science databases were searched up to January 1, 2019 to identify studies investigating the diagnostic accuracy of HE4 for lung cancer. We assessed the quality of eligible studies with the revised Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (QUADAS-2) tool. The overall diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative likelihood ratios were pooled using a bivariate model. Deeks's test was applied to detect the degree of publication bias.

Results

A total of 16 studies with 18 cohorts (1,756 lung cancers and 1,446 controls) were included. HE4 had a pooled sensitivity of 0.65 (95% CI: 0.54-0.75), specificity of 0.88 (95% CI: 0.82-0.92), positive likelihood ration of 5.3 (95% CI: 3.7-7.6) and negative likelihood ratio of 0.40 (95% CI: 0.30-0.52). Patient selection bias and partial verification bias were the major design weaknesses of available studies. No publication bias was observed.

Conclusions

HE4 has moderate diagnostic accuracy for lung cancer. Its result should be interpreted in parallel with clinical findings and the results of other conventional tests. Further studies are still needed to rigorously evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of HE4 for lung cancer.