ObjectiveTo systematically review the value of human epididymis protein 4 (HE4) in early diagnosis of endometrial cancer. MethodsDatabases including The Cochrane Library (Issue 1, 2013), PubMed, MEDLINE (Ovid), CNKI, CBM and WanFang Data were electronically searched for relevant studies on HE4 versus the golden standard (pathological examination) in the diagnosis of endometrial cancer from inception to April 2013. Meanwhile, relevant journals were also manually searched. Two reviewers independently screened literature according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and evaluated the included studies using the QUADAS items. Then, meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.1 and Meta-DiSc 1.0. ResultsFinally, a total of 16 studies involving 2 299 women (1 088 endometrial cancer patients diagnosed according to the golden standard, of which, 504 with benign uterine disease and 707 with normal cervical) were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that, as for HE4 in early diagnosis of endometrial cancer (SEN=57%, 95%CI 0.54 to 0.60; SPE=92%, 95%CI 0.91 to 0.94; +LR=6.92, 95%CI 5.00 to 9.58;-LR=0.46, 95%CI 0.39 to 0.55; DOR=18.38, 95%CI 12.21 to 27.69; AUC=0.881 7). ConclusionThe current study indicates that serum HE4 is more sensitive and low specific when applied in patients with endometrial cancer, which is worth of being used in clinic. Due to the limitation of low quality of the included studies, more high quality trials are required to verify the above conclusion.
ObjectiveTo systematically review the diagnostic value between serum human epididymis protein 4 (HE4) and carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125) for endometrial cancer (EC). MethodsWe electronically searched databases including PubMed, The Cochrane Library, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, EBSCO, CNKI and VIP to collect diagnostic accuracy studies of serum HE4 and/or CA125 versus golden standard (pathology) for EC from inception to August 2014. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk bias of included studies by QUADAS-2 tool. Then, meta-analysis was performed by Meta-Disc 1.4 software. ResultsA total of 20 studies involving 4 351 participants were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that:the pooled sensitivity (Sen), specificity (Spe), positive likelihood ratio (+LR), and negative likelihood ratio (-LR), and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) of HE4 in the diagnosis of EC were 0.56 (95%CI 0.54 to 0.58), 0.89 (95%CI 0.88 to 0.90), 6.19 (95%CI 4.31 to 8.88), 0.49 (95%CI 0.44 to 0.56), and 14.27 (95%CI 9.50 to 21.42), respectively. The area under the curve (AUC) of SROC was 0.855 9. The pooled Sen, Spe, +LR,-LR, and DOR of CA125 in the diagnosis of EC were 0.33 (95%CI 0.31 to 0.34), 0.80 (95%CI 0.78 to 0.82), 2.07 (95%CI 1.45 to 2.95), 0.83 (95%CI 0.76 to 0.91), and 2.65 (95%CI 1.63 to 4.32), respectively. The SROC AUC was 0.657 5. ConclusionCompared with CA125, HE4 has higher diagnostic accuracy for EC. Due to limited quality and quantity of the included studies, more high quality studies are needed to verify the above conclusion.