Diagnostic performance of circular RNAs in human cancers: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Abstract

Background Recently, accumulating evidence have revealed that circular RNA (circRNA) was deregulated in multiple types of cancer, suggesting that circRNA might serve as a novel candidate biomarker of cancer diagnosis. However, inconsistent results have become an obstacle in applying circRNAs to clinical practice. The aim of this study is to evaluate diagnostic value of circRNAs among cancers. Methods A literature search was systematically performed among PubMed, Sciencedirect, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Wanfang, and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure databases up to February 15, 2019. The pooled sensitivity (SEN), specificity (SPE), positive likelihood ratios, negative likelihood ratios, diagnostic odds ratio, and area under the SROC curve (AUC) were applied to evaluate diagnostic performance of circRNAs. Results In total, the study included 64 studies with single circRNA and 13 studies with combined circRNAs. Overall, the study presented that a single circRNA had moderate diagnostic value, with a SEN of 0.75, a SPE of 0.76, and an AUC of 0.82. The plasma circRNAs had higher diagnostic accuracy than tissue (AUC: 0.87, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.83–0.89 for plasma/serum subgroup; AUC: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.75–0.82 for tissue subgroup). Furthermore, the combined circRNAs had good diagnostic efficacy for GC, with a SEN of 0.89, a SPE of 0.94, and an AUC of 0.97, respectively. Conclusion This study confirmed that circRNAs may be candidate biomarkers for cancer diagnosis. In particular, diagnosis of combined circRNAs will be a new alternative applied to clinical research and practice for cancer.

Prognostic and diagnostic value of circRNA expression in colorectal carcinoma: a meta-analysis

“…In previous meta-analyses, only five meta-analyses [34][35][36][37][38] detected an association between the circRNAs and carcinoma. However, in the studies of Wang et al [34], Chen et al [35] and Li et al [36], only one study was included to investigate the relationship between the circRNAs and CRC.…”

Roles of circRNAs in the tumour microenvironment

“…The majority of human tumours present startling heterogeneity in many of their morphological and physiological features, such as their expression of cell surface receptors and proliferative and angiogenic potential [95]. In recent years, circRNAs have been shown to act as auxiliary diagnostic biomarkers of diverse cancers, and their expression is reported to be heterogeneous in different cancers [96]. Similarly, the latest research suggests that circRNAs are heterogeneous in their regulation of tumour angiogenesis.…”

Prognostic and diagnostic value of circRNA expression in colorectal carcinoma: a meta-analysis

“…In previous meta-analyses, only five meta-analyses [33][34][35][36][37] detected an association between the circRNAs and carcinoma. However, in the studies of Wang et al [33], Chen et al [34] and Li et al [35], only one study was included to investigate the relationship between the circRNAs and CRC. Li et al [36] and Ding et al [37] assessed the diagnostic value of circRNAs for human cancers, in which five articles were included to investigate the diagnostic value of circRNAs in CRC, whereas they failed to discuss the role of circRNAs in CRC patients.…”