Exosomal MicroRNAs as novel diagnostic biomarkers in head and neck cancer: a systematic evaluation and meta-analysis

Head and neck cancer ranks as the sixth most common malignant tumor globally, with the majority of patients detected at advanced stages. Consequently, this study assessed the clinical diagnostic efficiency of exosomal microRNAs (miRNAs) for head and neck malignancies by meta-analysis.

The pertinent literature about exosomal miRNAs for the diagnosis of head and neck cancer was retrieved from the Chinese full-text journal database, Wanfang database, Wipu database, and the databases of PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science, spanning from the inception of the databases to April 30, 2024. The data were processed using Review Manager 5.4, Meta-DiSc 1.4, and Stata MP 18.0 software for meta-analysis.

15 studies, encompassing 1,086 cases and 722 controls, were ultimately incorporated into 11 papers; owing to the heterogeneity induced by non-threshold effects among the studies, a random effects model was employed to aggregate the effect sizes; the aggregated sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (PLR), and negative likelihood ratio (NLR) for diagnosing head and neck cancer using exosomal miRNAs were 0.81, 0.73, 4.2 and 0.24. The diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) and area under the curve (AUC) were 19.61 and 0.89, respectively. The subgroup analysis indicated that the simultaneous detection of numerous compounds could enhance diagnostic effectiveness.

Exosomal miRNAs may serve as biomarkers for the clinical diagnosis of head and neck cancer; nevertheless, their clinical implications require validation by additional comprehensive prospective investigations.