Table 1.
Pooled Sen, Spe, DOR, and heterogeneity analysis results of PET tests of different radiotracers and techniques.
| Radiotracer and test technique | Quantitative parameter | Threshold range | ρ and P value | Heterogeneity of pooled Sen (upper) and Spe (lower) (P-value of Q test and I2) | Pooled Sen and its 95%CI | Pooled Spe and its 95%CI | Pooled DOR and its 95%CI | AUC of HSROC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18F-FET | TBRmax (810 tests) | 1.95,3.52 | 0.068 (P = 0.816) | §P < 0.1, I2 = 85.3%||P = 0.09, I2 = 36.1% | 0.88 (0.80,0.93) | 0.78 (0.69,0.85) | 26 (12,57) | 0.86 (0.83, 0.89) |
| TBRmean (713 tests) | 1.52,2.98 | −0.677 (P = 0.022) | NA* | NA* | NA* | NA* | 0.90 (0.87, 0.92) | |
| TTP (317 tests) | 20,45 | 0.714 (P = 0.111) | §P = 0.03, I2 = 59.1%¶P = 0.1, I2 = 45.2% | 0.80 (0.68,0.88) | 0.67 (0.48,0.81) | 8 (4,16) | 0.81 (0.77, 0.84) | |
| 18F-FDG (631 tests) | NA† | NA† | 0.432 (P = 0.161) | —||P = 0.04, I2 = 46.4%¶P = 0.5, I2 = 0.0% | 0.78 (0.71,0.83) | 0.87 (0.80,0.92) | 23 (14,39) | 0.90 (0.87, 0.92) |
| 11C-MET | TBR (409 tests) | 1.43,2.51 | 0.559 (P = 0.192) | §P < 0.1, I2 = 86.3%¶P = 0.35, I2 = 10.8% | 0.92 (0.83,0.96) | 0.78 (0.69,0.86) | 39 (15,105) | 0.82 (0.78, 0.85) |
| 18F-DOPA | TBRmax (175 tests), visual (175 tests) | NA† | −0.638 (P = 0.173) | ¶P = 0.30, I2 = 18.2%¶P = 0.61, I2 = 0.0% | 0.85 (0.80,0.89) | 0.70 (0.60,0.79) | 13 (7,24) | 0.85 (0.82, 0.88) |
| FET-PET and MRI (190 tests) | NA‡ | NA‡ | 0.316 (P = 0.648) | §P = 0.06, I2 = 60.2%¶P = 0.16, I2 = 42.5% | 0.88 (0.78,0.94) | 0.76 (0.57,0.88) | 23 (9,59) | 0.90 (0.87, 0.92) |
| FET-PET static/dynamic multi-parameters analysis (354 tests) | NA‡ | NA‡ | −0.100 (P = 0.873) | ||P = 0.09, I2 = 49.5%¶P = 0.30, I2 = 18.4% | 0.88 (0.81,0.92) | 0.79 (0.63,0.89) | 26 (9,78) | 0.91 (0.88, 0.93) |
AUC, area under receiver operating curve; CI, confidence interval; DOR, diagnostic odds ratio; HSROC, hierarchical summary receiver operating characteristic; NA*, not available because of the threshold effect existed; NA†, not available because not all the studies used quantitative parameter analysis of PET; NA‡, not available because different parameters were used among studies; ρ, Spearman correlation coefficient; TBR, tumor-to-brain ratio; TTP, time-to-peak;
, significant heterogeneity;
, slight heterogeneity;
, no heterogeneity;
#, some studies only reported the value of TBR, so it was used instead of TBRmax or TBRmean to analyze the pooled effect. Bold face type indicates statistical significance.