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. 2024 Feb 14:15:1339357.
doi: 10.3389/fgene.2024.1339357. eCollection 2024.

Circulating miRNAs as biomarkers for the diagnosis in patients with melanoma: systematic review and meta-analysis

Nicholas Jones  1 , Taichiro Nonaka  2   3
Affiliations

Circulating miRNAs as biomarkers for the diagnosis in patients with melanoma: systematic review and meta-analysis

Nicholas Jones et al. Front Genet. .

Abstract

Objective: Melanoma is the most aggressive and deadly form of skin cancer, especially at later stages. There is currently no excellent diagnostic test established for the diagnosis of melanoma; however, circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) have shown some promise. We seek to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to establish the clinical utility of circulating miRNAs in diagnosing melanoma. Methods: PubMed, Wiley, and Web of Science were searched for studies that determined miRNA sensitivity and specificity in patients with melanoma. The included studies were assessed in Stata, and the sensitivity, specificity, summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC), positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, and the area under the SROC curve (AUC) were calculated. Results: 9 studies with 898 melanoma patients were included in the meta-analysis. The circulating miRNAs showed high diagnostic accuracy with a sensitivity of 0.89 (p < 0.001), specificity of 0.85 (p < 0.001), diagnostic odds ratio of 45, and an area under the curve of 0.93. Conclusion: Circulating miRNAs have shown a high diagnostic power in detecting melanoma.

Keywords: biomarker; circulating miRNAs; diagnostics; liquid biopsy; melanoma.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
PRISMA flowsheet on the study selection process.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
QUADAS-2 quality assessment of the 9 included articles.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Sensitivity and specificity of upregulated miRNA in the diagnosis. The sensitivity of each study with a pooled sensitivity on the left and the specificity of each study with a pooled specificity on the right.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
SROC curve analysis. The AUC for the SROC was 0.93 (95% CI 0.91–0.95) for using upregulated miRNA blood tests in the diagnosis of melanoma. AUC, area under the curve; SROC, summary receiver operating characteristic.
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
The diagnostic performance of miRNAs on predicting melanoma. Forest plot of individual and pooled diagnostic scores (left) and diagnostic odds ratio (right) of the included 9 articles.
FIGURE 6
FIGURE 6
(A) Scatter plot using the NLR and PLR. (B) Fagan’s nomogram for post-test probability using the NLR and PLR for using upregulated miRNAs as a biomarker in the blood for the diagnosis of melanoma.
FIGURE 7
FIGURE 7
The Deeks’ funnel plot asymmetry test for publication bias of the included studies testing for upregulated miRNAs for the diagnosis of melanoma.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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