Diagnostic accuracy of Raman spectroscopy for prostate cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Although various studies have been conducted to demonstrate the possibility of Raman spectroscopy (RS) as a diagnostic tool for prostate cancer (PC), it is difficult to use it in the real clinical area because of imitations in various research processes. Therefore, we did a systematic review and meta-analysis about the accuracy in diagnostic use of RS for PC.

A literature search was done using PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane library databases in March 2019 to analyze the accuracy of RS for diagnosis of PC. The accuracy of RS for diagnosis of PC was evaluated by means of pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), and summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC).

Five studies were included for qualitative analysis by screening the remaining articles according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria by means of a systematic review. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of RS were 0.89 (95% CI: 0.87-0.91) and 0.91 (95% CI: 0.89-0.93), respectively. The overall PLR and NLR were 9.12 (95% CI: 4.15-20.08) and 0.14 (95% CI: 0.07-0.29), respectively. The DOR of RS demonstrated high accuracy (73.32; 95% CI: 18.43-291.73). The area under the curves (AUCs) of SROC curves was 0.93.

RS is an optical diagnostic method with high potential for diagnosis and grading of PC and has advantages of real-time and convenient use. In order to consider real-time use of RS in an actual clinical setting, more studies for standardization and generalization of RS performance and analytical method must be conducted.