Detection of KRAS mutation using plasma samples in non-small-cell lung cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis

The aim of this study was to investigate the diagnostic accuracy of KRAS mutation detection using plasma sample of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Databases of Pubmed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science were searched for studies detecting KRAS mutation in paired tissue and plasma samples of patients with NSCLC. Data were extracted from each eligible study and analyzed using MetaDiSc and STATA.

After database searching and screening of the studies with pre-defined criteria, 43 eligible studies were identified and relevant data were extracted. After pooling the accuracy data from 3341 patients, the pooled sensitivity, specificity and diagnostic odds ratio were 71%, 94%, and 59.28, respectively. Area under curve of summary receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.8883. Subgroup analysis revealed that next-generation sequencing outperformed PCR-based techniques in detecting KRAS mutation using plasma sample of patients with NSCLC, with sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic odds ratio of 73%, 94%, and 82.60, respectively.

Compared to paired tumor tissue sample, plasma sample showed overall good performance in detecting KRAS mutation in patients with NSCLC, which could serve as good surrogate when tissue samples are not available.