Performance of osteopontin in the diagnosis of malignant pleural mesothelioma: a meta-analysis

It is reported that osteopontin has shown promising diagnostic value for malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM), this meta-analysis aimed to establish the overall diagnostic accuracy of the osteopontin measurement for diagnosing MPM. Based on a systematic review of English language studies, the sensitivity, specificity and other measures of accuracy of osteopontin in the diagnosis of MPM were pooled using random-effects model. Summary receiver operating characteristic curves were used to summarize overall test performance. Seven publications met our inclusion criteria, the pooled sensitivity was 0.57 (95%CI: 0.52-0.61), specificity was 0.81, 95%CI: 0.79-0.84). The PLR was 3.78 (95%CI: 2.23-6.41), the NLR was 0.51 (95%CI: 0.38-0.67) and the DOR was 9.04 (95%CI: 5.28-15.48), the area under the summary receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.80. Our data suggest that osteopontin is likely to be a useful diagnostic marker for MPM, considering for the limited studies and patients included, larger studies are needed to confirm these findings.