Performance of Contrast-enhanced Ultrasound Liver Imaging Reporting and Data System LR-5 in the Diagnosis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma:A Meta-analysis

Abstract

Objective To evaluate the performance of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) liver imaging reporting and data system (LI-RADS) LR-5 in the diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods The clinical research reports with the application of CEUS LI-RADS in the diagnosis of HCC were collected from PubMed,Embase,Cochrane Library,CNKI,and Wanfang Data from inception to November 14,2021.Two researchers respectively screened the literature and extracted relevant information.The Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (QUADAS) was used to evaluate the quality of all the included articles.RevMan 5.4,Meta disc 1.4,and Stata 16.0 were employed to analyze the diagnostic performance of LR-5 for HCC in high-risk patients. Results Twenty original studies were included,involving a total of 6131 lesions,of which 5142 were HCC.The results of meta-analysis showed that the LR-5 in CEUS LI-RADS for diagnosing HCC in the high-risk population had the overall sensitivity of 0.72 (95%CI=0.66-0.77),the overall specificity of 0.93 (95%CI=0.87-0.96),the overall positive likelihood ratio of 9.89 (95%CI=5.31-18.41),the overall negative likelihood ratio of 0.30 (95%CI=0.25-0.37),and the area under the summary receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.88 (95%CI=0.85-0.91).There was heterogeneity among the included studies (I2=95.31,P<0.001).The funnel plot indicated the existence of publication bias (P=0.04). Conclusion The CEUS LI-RADS can effectively diagnose HCC in high-risk patients based on the LR-5 criteria.