ME-NBI combined with endoscopic ultrasonography for diagnosing and staging the invasion depth of early esophageal cancer: a diagnostic meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Several methods can assist in detecting early esophageal cancer (EEC) and staging esophageal cancer (EC) invasion depth. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the accuracy of magnifying endoscopy with narrow-band imaging (ME-NBI) plus endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) for diagnosing EC. METHODS: We searched the PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) databases for relevant studies. The Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies 2 (QADAS2) was used to assess the studies’ methodological quality. The sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood (LR+), negative likelihood (LR−), and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) were calculated, and the summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curves were drawn to evaluate the diagnostic performance. RESULTS: Seven studies were included. The meta-analysis suggested that the pooled sensitivity, specificity, LR+, LR−, and DOR of ME-NBI plus EUS for diagnosing EC were 0.947 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.901–0.975), 0.894 (95% CI, 0.847–0.931), 7.989 (95% CI, 4.264–14.970), 0.066 (95% CI, 0.035–0.124), and 137.96 (95% CI, 60.369–315.27), respectively. Those values for staging the invasive depth were 0.791 (95% CI, 0.674–0.881), 0.943 (95% CI, 0.906–0.968), 13.087 (95% CI, 7.559–22.657), 0.226 (95% CI, 0.142–0.360), and 61.332 (95% CI, 27.343–137.57). The areas under the curves (AUCs) for diagnosis and staging were 0.97 and 0.95, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: ME-NBI plus EUS might be an adequate diagnostic and staging modality for EC. Due to the study limitations, more large-scale, high-quality studies are needed to confirm the diagnostic accuracy of ME-NBI plus EUS. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12957-022-02809-6.