The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to estimate the accuracy of qualitative pain drawings (PDs) in identifying psychological distress in subacute and chronic low back pain (LBP) patients. [Subjects and Methods] Data were obtained from searches of PubMed, EBSCO, Scopus, PsycINFO and ISI Web of Science from their inception to July 2014. Quality assessments of bias and applicab...

BACKGROUND Comprehensive monitoring of the quality of systematic reviews (SRs) and meta-analyses (MAs) of endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) requires complete and accurate reporting and methodology. OBJECTIVE To assess the reporting and methodological quality of SRs/MAs on EUS diagnosis and to explore the potential factors influencing articles' quality. METHODS The quality of the reporting and met...

BACKGROUND There is a lack of consensus regarding the use of quality scores in diagnostic systematic reviews. The objective of this study was to use different methods of weighting items included in a quality assessment tool for diagnostic accuracy studies (QUADAS) to produce an overall quality score, and to examine the effects of incorporating these into a systematic review. METHODS We develo...

INTRODUCTION Accumulating evidences indicate that microRNA-21(miR-21) show significant high concentration in plasma of gastric cancer (GC) patients compared to normal individuals, suggesting that it may be a useful novel diagnostic biomarker for gastric cancer. Therefore, we aimed to assess the potential diagnostic value of miR-21 for gastric cancer in this study. METHODS Literature database ...

The objective of this meta-analysis was to determine the diagnostic accuracy of circulating microRNA-155 (miR-155) for breast cancer (BC). PubMed, Embase, EBSCO (ASP/BSP), Cochrane Library and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) were searched up to 30 January 2014 for eligible studies. Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (QUADAS) was employed to assess the quality of th...

PURPOSE We wanted to summarize evidence about the diagnostic accuracy of the 5.07/10-g monofilament test in peripheral neuropathy. METHODS We conducted a systematic review of studies in which the accuracy of the 5.07/10-g monofilament was evaluated to detect peripheral neuropathy of any cause using nerve conduction as reference standard. Methodological quality was assessed using the Quality A...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this systematic review was to critically appraise the literature on the accuracy of orthopaedic tests for the spine. METHODS Multiple orthopaedic texts were reviewed to produce a comprehensive list of spine orthopaedic test names and synonyms. A search was conducted in MEDLINE, MANTIS, CINAHL, AMED and the Cochrane Library for relevant articles from inception up to D...

BACKGROUND Various studies assessing the diagnostic value of serum tumor markers in patients with esophageal cancer remain controversial. This study aims to comprehensively and quantitatively summarize the potential diagnostic value of 5 serum tumour markers in esophageal cancer. METHODS We systematically searched PubMed, Embase, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Chinese Bi...

PURPOSE To evaluate methodological and reporting quality of diagnostic accuracy studies of perimetry in glaucoma and to determine whether there had been any improvement since the publication of the Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy (STARD) guidelines. METHODS A systematic review of English language articles published between 1993 and 2013 reporting the diagnostic accuracy of peri...

The accuracy of prenatal diagnosis for abnormal chromosome diseases by chromosome microarray technology and karyotyping were compared. A literature search was carried out in the MEDLINE database with the keywords "chromosome" and "karyotype" and "genetic testing" and "prenatal diagnosis" and "oligonucleotide array sequence". The studies obtained were filtered by using the QUADAS tool, and studi...