The accuracy of Raman spectroscopy in the diagnosis of lung cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: To investigate the overall performance of Raman Spectroscopy (RS) in the diagnosis of lung cancer. METHODS: We systematic searched databases including PubMed, EMBASE, CNKI and Web of science for studies up to May 2020 with no start date limited. Then we extracted data of true positives, true negatives, false positives and false negatives from the included studies to calculate the pooled sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive and negative likelihood ratios (LRs), and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), with 95% confidence intervals to evaluate the diagnostic value of Raman spectroscopy. We plotted the summary receiver operator characteristics (SROC) and the area under the curve (AUC) to evaluate the overall performance of Raman spectroscopy. Quality assessments and Publication bias were evaluated by QUADAS-2 checklist and Stata software version 12.0. RESULTS: Totally, 12 studies were included in our meta-analysis. The pooled diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of Raman Spectroscopy in lung cancer were 0.90 (95% CI, 0.87–0.92, P<0.05) and 0.76 (95% CI, 0.72–0.79, P<0.05). The pooled PLR and NLR were 5.87 (95% CI, 3.45–9.97) and 0.14 (95% CI, 0.10–0.22) respectively. And the AUC of SROC curve was 0.9453. DISCUSSION: Raman spectroscopy had excellent accuracy with high sensitivity and considerable specificity in the diagnosis of lung cancer.