The diagnostic value of miRNA-141 in prostate cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis

MiR-141 has gradually demonstrated its value in the diagnosis of prostate cancer. However, the diagnostic parameters applied in previous studies were different. This systematic review was conducted to explore the diagnostic value of miR-141 in prostate cancer. A comprehensive search of related literature in PubMed, Medline, the Cochrane Library and Embase databases was performed. Seven studies were included which assessed the diagnostic value of miR-141 in patients with prostate cancer up to October 31, 2019. Meta-disc version 1.4 and STATA software version 12.0 were used to analyze the data. The pooled sensitivity and specificity were 0.70 (95% CI 0.64~0.75) and 0.73 (95% CI 0.64~0.80), respectively. The positive likelihood ratio (PLR) was 2.88 (95% CI 1.40~5.93), and negative likelihood ratio (NLR) was 0.38 (95% CI 0.20~0.71). The pooled diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) of miR-141 for prostate cancer was observed to be 9.94 (95% CI: 2.55~38.80). The summary area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was 0.83 (95% CI: 0.79~0.86). The results of meta-regression suggested that heterogeneity was mainly derived from patient age. The Fagan nomogram results showed a significant increase when correlating miR-141 with the diagnosis of prostate cancer. This meta-analysis suggests that miR-141 has a high diagnostic value for prostate cancer. In future, large-scale prospective studies will be done to verify and evaluate this result.