Diagnostic accuracy of EUS and CT of vascular invasion in pancreatic cancer: a systematic review

The objective of this study was to summarize the accuracy of preoperative vascular invasion with endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) and computed tomography (CT) test performance in pancreatic cancer with meta-analysis

Two reviewers searched MEDLINE database to identify relevant studies. The reference lists of the trials were manually searched. Included studies used surgical and/or histological findings as the “gold standard,” and provided sufficient data to construct a diagnostic 2 × 2 table. A statistical program of Meta-Disc was used to calculate the pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive LR, negative LR, DOR, and the SROC curve. Publication bias was assessed by Deeks’ asymmetry test. Sensitivity analysis and subgroup analysis were calculated to down the heterogeneity. Meta-regression was calculated to evaluate potential sources of heterogeneity

A total of 30 studies with 1,554 patients were included for the analysis, nine of these studies compared EUS with CT to assess the diagnostic efficiency The pooled sensitivity of EUS and CT was 72 % (95 % CI 67–77 %) and 63 % (95 % CI 58–67 %), and the pooled specificity of EUS and CT was 89 % (95 % CI 86–92 %) and 92 % (95 % CI 90–94 %), respectively. The positive LR of EUS and CT was 5.14 (95 % CI 3.14–8.40) and 6.21 (95 % CI 3.96–9.71), and the negative LR was 0.36 (95 % CI 0.25–0.52) and 0.41 (95 % CI 0.31–0.55), respectively. The AUCs of EUS and CT were 0.9037 and 0.8948. The subgroup analysis of nine studies performed both EUS and CT showed CT scan with a lower sensitivity of 48 % (95 % CI 0.40–0.56), when compared to EUS of 69 % (95 % CI 0.61–0.77). The overall AUCs of CT scan appear to be lower (AUCs = 0.8589), compared with EUS (AUCs = 0.9379)

EUS performed better than CT in differentiating vascular invasion preoperative on pancreatic cancer. EUS could provide other additional information when compared with CT.