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Meta-Analysis
. 2015 Jul 6;10(7):e0131602.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0131602. eCollection 2015.

The Screening Performance of Serum 1,3-Beta-D-Glucan in Patients with Invasive Fungal Diseases: A Meta-Analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies

Tie-Ying Hou  1 , Shou-Hong Wang  2 , Sui-Xin Liang  2 , Wen-Xin Jiang  3 , Dan-Dong Luo  4 , De-Hong Huang  5
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

The Screening Performance of Serum 1,3-Beta-D-Glucan in Patients with Invasive Fungal Diseases: A Meta-Analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies

Tie-Ying Hou et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

The serum 1,3-beta-D-glucan (BG) assay aids in the early diagnosis of invasive fungal diseases (IFDs) and has been approved for their diagnosis. However, reports on the screening performance of BG are scarce. We performed a meta-analysis of data extracted from only prospective cohort studies to evaluate the screening performance of the BG assay in the diagnosis of IFDs. We specifically searched 4 databases (the PubMed, Web of Science, Elsevier, and Cochrane Collaboration databases) according to EORTC-MSG criteria. A total of 1068 patients in 11 studies were analyzed. Deeks' funnel plot asymmetry test suggested a low likelihood of publication bias for the included studies (p = 0.055). The pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, diagnostic odds ratio, and area under the summary receiver operating characteristic curve, with 95% confidence intervals, were 0.75(0.63,0.84), 0.87(0.81,0.92), 5.85(3.96,8.63), 0.30(0.20,0.45), 19.53(11.16,34.18), and 0.89(0.86,0.91), respectively. The findings of this meta-analysis suggest that the BG assay is a useful screening tool with high sensitivity and specificity for discriminating between patients with and without IFDs. In clinical practice, BG assay results should be evaluated together with clinical and microbiological findings.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Flow chart showing the study selection process.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Summary of the methodological quality assessment of the reviewed studies according to the 14 QUADAS criteria.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Forest plot of the pooled sensitivity and specificity of the BG assays for the diagnosis of IFDs.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Summary receiver operating characteristic curve plots for the sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of IFDs.
Fig 5
Fig 5. Linear regression of Deeks’ funnel plot asymmetry test for DORs (P = 0.055).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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