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. 2022 Apr 4;12(4):e058267.
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-058267.

Diagnostic and prognostic factors in patients with prostate cancer: a systematic review

Katharina Beyer  1 , Lisa Moris  2 , Michael Lardas  3 , Anna Haire  4 , Francesco Barletta  5 , Simone Scuderi  5 , Megan Molnar  6 , Ronald Herrera  6 , Abdul Rauf  7 , Riccardo Campi  8 , Isabella Greco  8 , Kirill Shiranov  9 , Saeed Dabestani  10 , Thomas van den Broeck  2 , Sujenthiran Arun  11 , Mauro Gacci  8 , Giorgio Gandaglia  5 , Muhammad Imran Omar  12 , Steven MacLennan  12 , Monique J Roobol  13 , Bahman Farahmand  14 , Eleni Vradi  6 , Zsuzsanna Devecseri  15 , Alex Asiimwe  6 , Jihong Zong  16 , Sara J Maclennan  12 , Laurence Collette  17 , James NDow  13 , Alberto Briganti  5   18 , Anders Bjartell  19 , Mieke Van Hemelrijck  4 ; the PIONEER Consortium
Affiliations

Diagnostic and prognostic factors in patients with prostate cancer: a systematic review

Katharina Beyer et al. BMJ Open. .

Abstract

Objectives: As part of the PIONEER Consortium objectives, we have explored which diagnostic and prognostic factors (DPFs) are available in relation to our previously defined clinician and patient-reported outcomes for prostate cancer (PCa).

Design: We performed a systematic review to identify validated and non-validated studies.

Data sources: MEDLINE, Embase and the Cochrane Library were searched on 21 January 2020.

Eligibility criteria: Only quantitative studies were included. Single studies with fewer than 50 participants, published before 2014 and looking at outcomes which are not prioritised in the PIONEER core outcome set were excluded.

Data extraction and synthesis: After initial screening, we extracted data following the Checklist for Critical Appraisal and Data Extraction for Systematic Reviews of prognostic factor studies (CHARMS-PF) criteria and discussed the identified factors with a multidisciplinary expert group. The quality of the included papers was scored for applicability and risk of bias using validated tools such as PROBAST, Quality in Prognostic Studies and Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies 2.

Results: The search identified 6604 studies, from which 489 DPFs were included. Sixty-four of those were internally or externally validated. However, only three studies on diagnostic and seven studies on prognostic factors had a low risk of bias and a low risk concerning applicability.

Conclusion: Most of the DPFs identified require additional evaluation and validation in properly designed studies before they can be recommended for use in clinical practice. The PIONEER online search tool for DPFs for PCa will enable researchers to understand the quality of the current research and help them design future studies.

Ethics and dissemination: There are no ethical implications.

Keywords: epidemiology; prostate disease; urological tumours.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Overview of four stage process. CHARMS-PF, Checklist for Critical Appraisal and Data Extraction for Systematic Reviews of prognostic factor studies; DPFs, diagnostic and prognostic factors; PROBAST, Prediction model Risk Of Bias Assessment Tool; QUADAS-2, Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies 2; QUIPS, Quality in Prognostic Studies; SR, systematic review.
Figure 2
Figure 2
PRISMA flow diagram. PRISMA, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses; COS, Core outcome set.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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