Efficacy of Raman spectroscopy in the diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: To comprehensively analyze the relative effectiveness of Raman spectroscopy (RS) in the diagnosis of suspected hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). METHODS: We will perform a complete systematic review based on studies from PubMed/Medline, EMBASE, Web of Science, Ovid, Web of Knowledge, Cochrane Library and CNKI. We plan to identify over 2000 spectra with strict criteria in several individual studies published between January 2008 and November 2020 in accordance to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. We are going to summarize the test performance using random effects models. RESULTS: This study will provide solid evidence and data on the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of RS in the diagnosis of HCC. CONCLUSION: Through this meta-analysis, we intend to provide the pooled sensitivity, specificity and diagnostic accuracy of RS in the diagnosis of suspected HCC. Other parameters like positive LR, negative LR, DOR and AUC of the SROC curve will also be calculated and drawn to help illustrate the efficacy of RS in the diagnosis of HCC.