Table 1. Summary of the studies included in the meta-analysis.
| First author/year | Country | Method | Effusion type | Cut-off | Sample size | TP | FP | FN | TN | QUADAS score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simisar A et al., 1999 | America | cell blocks | pleural | Cytoplasmic staining | 55 | 15 | 9 | 11 | 20 | 10 |
| Chhieng DC et al., 2000 | America | cell blocks | pleural and peritoneal | Cytoplasmic and nuclear staining | 37 | 14 | 0 | 2 | 21 | 11 |
| Kitazume H et al., 2000 | Japan | smears | pleural and peritoneal | ≥1% cytoplasmic and/or nuclear stained cells | 59 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 51 | 10 |
| Davidson B et al., 2001 | Norway | cell blocks | pleural and peritoneal | Cytoplasmic and nuclear staining | 110 | 11 | 3 | 1 | 95 | 11 |
| Politi E et al., 2005 | Greece | smears | pleural, peritoneal and pericardial | >10% cytoplasmic and nuclear stained cells | 84 | 4 | 16 | 0 | 64 | 10 |
| Saad RS et al., 2006 | America | cell blocks | pleural | >5%moderate/strong cytoplasmic and nuclear stained cells | 30 | 17 | 3 | 3 | 7 | 10 |
| Bhalla R et al., 2007 | America | cell blocks | pleural and peritoneal | Cytoplasmic and nuclear staining | 40 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 8 |
| Hanley KZ et al., 2007 | America | cell blocks | pleural, peritoneal and pericardial | Cytoplasmic and nuclear staining | 60 | 11 | 2 | 0 | 47 | 7 |
| Lyons-Boudreaux V et al. 2008 | America | cell blocks | pleural and peritoneal | Nuclear staining | 53 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 47 | 6 |
| Shield PW et al. 2008 | Australia | cell blocks | pleural and peritoneal | >5% nuclear and cytoplasmic stained cells | 101 | 33 | 2 | 1 | 65 | 8 |
| Xu YM et al. 2008 | China | cell blocks | pleural | Cytoplasmic and nuclear staining | 52 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 45 | 9 |
| Westfall DE et al. 2009 | America | cell blocks | pleural | Cytoplasmic and nuclear staining | 153 | 9 | 4 | 0 | 140 | 10 |
| Ensani F et al. 2011 | Iran | cell blocks | pleural and peritoneal | Cytoplasmic and nuclear staining | 63 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 59 | 11 |
| Su XY et al. 2011 | China | cellblocks | pleural and peritoneal or pericardial | >5% nuclear and cytoplasmic stained cells | 78 | 15 | 7 | 3 | 53 | 11 |
| Hou G et al. 2012 | China | smears | pleural | Cytoplasmic and nuclear staining | 56 | 10 | 7 | 1 | 38 | 8 |
| Hyun TS et al. 2012 | America | cell blocks | pleural | Cytoplasmic staining | 32 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 10 |
| Luo L et al. 2013 | China | cell blocks | peritoneal | ≥10% cytoplasmic and/or nuclear stained cells | 55 | 19 | 2 | 1 | 33 | 8 |
| Chen JF et al. 2013 | China | cell blocks | pleural | ≥10% cytoplasmic and/or nuclear stained cells | 1158 | 19 | 31 | 1 | 1107 | 11 |
TP, true positive; FP, false positive; FN, false negative; TN, true negative.