Objective:To systematically assess the detection of K-ras gene mutation at codon 12 in pancreatic juice for diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
Methods:A comprehensive electronic searching was performed to retrieve relevant studies on K-ras gene mutation in pancreatic juice for diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Data on accuracy of included studies were extracted, Meta-DiSc1.4, Stata10.0, was applied for further heterogeneity exploring, meta-analysis and publication bias testing.
Results:Fifteen studies met the inclusion criteria. Heterogeneity was not found among these studies, including threshold effect, different test methods, randomization and blind. Pooled accuracy indicators like sensitivity, specificity and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) were 0.61(95％CI 0.56-0.66), 0.82(95％CI 0.77-0.86) and 6.28(95％CI 4.42-8.91), respectively. Area under curve (AUC) of SROC (summary receiver operating characteristics) was 0.8207 and Q index was 0.7542. Publication bias had little influence on meta-analysis with the fail-safe number of 694.0108.
Conclusions:This meta-analysis demonstrates that the detection of K-ras gene mutation in pancreatic juice has moderate effect for diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. It is not enough to be an early diagnosing or screening indicator for pancreatic cancer, but it can be used clinically as an important adjunct to cytology, imageology and enzymology in the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.