Diagnostic efficacy of magnifying endoscopy with narrow-band imaging for gastric neoplasms: a meta-analysis

Magnifying endoscopy with narrow-band imaging (ME-NBI) is a novel, image-enhanced endoscopic technique for differentiating gastrointestinal neoplasms and potentially enabling pathological diagnosis.

The aim of this analysis was to assess the diagnostic performance of ME-NBI for gastric neoplasms.

We performed a systematic search of the PubMed, EMbase, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library databases for relevant studies. Meta-DiSc (version 1.4) and STATA (version 11.0) software were used for the data analysis. Random effects models were used to assess diagnostic efficacy. Heterogeneity was tested by the Q statistic and I2 statistic. Meta-regression was used to analyze the sources of heterogeneity.

A total of 10 studies, with 2151 lesions, were included. The pooled characteristics of these studies were as follows: sensitivity 0.85 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.81-0.89), specificity 0.96 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.95-0.97), and area under the curve (AUC) 0.9647. In the subgroup analysis, which compared the diagnostic efficacy of ME-NBI and white light imaging (WLI), the pooled sensitivity and specificity of ME-NBI were 0.87 (95% CI: 0.80-0.92) and 0.93 (95% CI: 0.90-0.95), respectively, and the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.9556. In contrast, the pooled sensitivity and specificity of WLI were 0.61 (95% CI: 0.53-0.69) and 0.65 (95% CI: 0.60-0.69), respectively, and the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.6772.

ME-NBI presents a high diagnostic value for gastric neoplasms and has a high specificity.