Impact of contrast ultrasound diagnosis for patients with liver cancer

BACKGROUND: Numerous studies have reported that contrast ultrasound (CU) can be utilized for diagnosis in patients with liver cancer (LC) accurately. However, no systematic review has addressed to assess its diagnostic impact on patients with LC. Thus, this systematic review will investigate the accurate of CU diagnosis on LC. METHODS: A comprehensive literature search for relevant studies will be performed in the Cochrane Library, EMBASE, MEDILINE, Web of Science, PSYCINFO, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Allied and Complementary Medicine Database, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure from inceptions to the March 10, 2019. All case-controlled studies investigating the impacts of CU diagnosis on LC will be included in this study. Two researchers will independently carry out study selection, quality assessment, and data extraction. The quality will be assessed by using Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies tool. Statistical analysis will be conducted by RevMan V.5.3 (Cochrane Community, London, UK) and Stata V.12.0 software (Stata Corp, College Station). RESULTS: This study will present the accuracy of CU diagnosis for patients with LC through the assessment of sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, and diagnostic odds ratio of CU. CONCLUSION: The findings of this study will summarize the current evidence for accuracy of CU diagnosis in patients with LC. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42019127108.