Extracellular vesicle biomarkers for pancreatic cancer diagnosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Extracellular vesicle (EV) biomarkers have promising diagnosis and screening capacity for several cancers, but the diagnostic value for pancreatic cancer (PC) is controversial. The aim of our study was to review the diagnostic performance of EV biomarkers for PC. METHODS: We performed a systematic review of PubMed, Medline, and Web Of Science databases from inception to 18 Feb 2022. We identified studies reporting the diagnostic performance of EV biomarkers for PC and summarized the information of sensitivity, specificity, area under the curve (AUC), or receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve) in according to a pre-designed data collection form. Pooled sensitivity and specificity was calculated using a random-effect model. RESULTS: We identified 39 studies, including 2037 PC patients and 1632 noncancerous, seven of which were conducted independent validation tests. Seventeen studies emphasized on EV RNAs, sixteen on EV proteins, and sixteen on biomarker panels. MiR-10b, miR-21, and GPC1 were the most frequently reported RNA and protein for PC diagnosis. For individual RNAs and proteins, the pooled sensitivity and specificity were 79% (95% CI: 77–81%) and 87% (95% CI: 85–89%), 72% (95% CI: 69–74%) and 77% (95% CI: 74–80%), respectively. the pooled sensitivity and specificity of EV RNA combined with protein panels were 84% (95% CI: 81–86%) and 89% (95% CI: 86–91%), respectively. Surprisingly, for early stage (stage I and II) PC EV biomarkers showed excellent diagnostic performance with the sensitivity of 90% (95% CI: 87–93%) and the specificity of 94% (95% CI: 92–95%). Both in sensitivity and subgroup analyses, we did not observe notable difference in pooled sensitivity and specificity. Studies might be limited by the isolation and detection techniques of EVs to a certain extent. CONCLUSIONS: EV biomarkers showed appealing diagnostic preference for PC, especially for early stage PC. Solving the deficiency of technologies of isolation and detection EVs has important implications for application these novel noninvasive biomarkers in clinical practice. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12885-022-09463-x.