Diagnostic accuracy of CK-19, Galectin-3 and HBME-1 on papillary thyroid carcinoma: a meta-analysis

The study aimed at evaluating the diagnostic accuracy of cytokeratin 19 (CK-19), Galectin-3 and hector battifora mesothelial antigen-1 (HBME-1) for papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). The eligible studies were searched in relevant databases with predefined key searching terms and inclusion criteria. Then, the quality assessment was performed by using Diagnostic Accuracy Studies scoring tool. Following the heterogeneity test, a meta-analysis of pooled several effect size including sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR) and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) with their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were conducted by Meta-DiSc software. Next, the summary receiver operating characteristic ROC (SROC) curve was drawn. Total 29 studies with high quality were included in this meta-analysis. The pooled result of CK-19 showed that sensitivity, specificity, PLR, NLR and DOR were 0.816 (95% CI: 0.799-0.832), 0.872 (95% CI: 0.855-0.888), 5.900 (95% CI: 5.193-6.703), 0.205 (95% CI: 0.185-0.228), respectively. For Galectin-3, the pooled sensitivity, specificity, PLR, NLR and DOR were 0.842 (95% CI: 0.825-0.858), 0.833 (95% CI: 0.814-0.851), 5.057 (95% CI: 4.494-5.690), 0.176 (95% CI: 0.154-0.200) and 33.312 (95% CI: 26.403-42.029). For HBME-1, the pooled sensitivity, specificity, PLR, NLR and DOR were 0.928 (95% CI: 0.913-0.941), 0.864 (95% CI: 0.847-0.880), 6.204 (95% CI: 5.498-7.002), 0.082 (95% CI: 0.067-0.102), 57.107 (95% CI: 43.421-75.107), respectively. The area under curve (AUC) value in SROC curve of CK-19, Galectin-3 and HBME-1 were 0.9134 (95% CI: 0.877-0.950), 0.8452 (95% CI: 0.809-0.882) and 0.9047 (95% CI: 0.868-0.941), respectively. Compared with CK-19 and Galectin-3, HBME-1 was a more accurate maker and might be used independently for PTC diagnosis. CK-19 and Galectin-3 might as second-line detection for PTC diagnosis.