Diagnostic value of circulating methylated SEPT9 DNA in colorectal cancer: a meta-analysis

The diagnostic value of circulating SEPT9 DNA methylation in patients with colorectal cancer remains controversial. Thus, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess diagnostic accuracy of SEPT9 DNA methylation for colorectal cancer (CRC). We conducted a comprehensive literature search in PubMed, the Cochrane library, Web of Science databases and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) up until January 20, 2016. The diagnostic sensitivity (SEN), specificity (SPE), positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), and summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curve were pooled using STATA 12.0 software. A total of 6,079 subjects included 1,890 colorectal cancer patients in 20 studies were included in this meta-analysis. The summary estimates for circulating methylated SEPT9 DNA in the diagnosis of CRC in these studies were pooled SEN =0.72 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.65-0.78), SPE =0.88 (95% CI: 0.850.91), PLR 6.13 (95% CI: 4.90-7.67), NLR 0.32 (95% CI: 0.25-0.40]), and DOR 19.3 (95% CI: 13.14-28.31), and the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.90 (95% CI: 0.87-0.92). The current analysis indicated that circulating methylated SEPT9 DNA may be a valuable marker in the diagnosis of CRC, but this conclusion has to be interpreted cautiously owing to high heterogeneity and some limitations. Further studies with more well-designed should be required to confirm the results in the future.