Table 4.

Comparison of meta-analysis results on diagnostic efficacy between CT and MRI

Unit	Variable	Number detected	SEN (95% CI)	SPE (95% CI)	AUC (SE)	Q* (SE)
Node	CT	2,483	0.77 (0.73–0.87)	0.85 (0.84–0.87)	0.8429 (0.0341)	0.7745 (0.0318)
	MRI	7,100	0.72 (0.70–0.74)	0.84 (0.83–0.85)	0.9054 (0.0198)	0.8371 (0.0215)
	P		0.0176	0.2739	0.1098	0.1262
Neck level	CT	1,665	0.84 (0.75–0.84)	0.72 (0.69–0.74)	0.8787 (0.0268)	0.8091 (0.0270)
	MRI	4,022	0.80 (0.77–0.82)	0.81 (0.80–0.82)	0.8860 (0.0262)	0.8165 (0.0269)
	P		1.0000	0.0000	0.8689	0.8702
Patient	CT	230	0.67 (0.52–0.80)	0.74 (0.68–0.81)	0.6860 (0.0815)	0.6418 (0.0643)
	MRI	716	0.78 (0.70–0.81)	0.76 (0.72–0.80)	0.8631 (0.0437)	0.7937 (0.0424)
	P		0.1992	0.6161	0.0491	0.0683

Abbreviations: AUC, area under the curve; CI, confidence interval; SE, standard error; CT, computed tomography; MRI, magnetic resonance imaging; SEN, sensitivity; SPE, specificity.