Diagnostic Accuracy of Magnifying Endoscopy with Narrow Band Imaging and Its Diagnostic Value for Invasion Depth Staging in Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Background and Goals: This study aimed to investigate the diagnostic accuracy of magnifying endoscopy with narrow band imaging (ME-NBI) and determine its value for invasion depth staging in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

Methods: We searched the PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases and found relevant studies published up to December 2016. Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies 2 was used to evaluate the quality of the studies. We calculated sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative likelihood values from forest plots and determined summary receiver operating characteristic (sROC) curves for ME-NBI diagnostic accuracy analysis.

Results: Ten studies met our criteria and were selected for this meta-analysis. A total of 1,033 patients underwent ME-NBI, and 207 of these patients received a diagnosis of staging mucosal or submucosal invasion. The pooled sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative likelihood values of ME-NBI for the diagnostic rate were 0.90 (95% CI, 0.71-0.97), 0.90 (95% CI, 0.80-0.95), 6.74 (95% CI, 3.52-712.89), and 0.20 (95% CI, 0.10-0.42), respectively. The area under the curve (AUC) was 0.95 for all studies.

Conclusions: ME-NBI provides a high diagnostic rate in evaluating the esophagus to diagnose squamous cell carcinoma. In the differentiation for invasion depth staging, ME-NBI was demonstrated to be superior to white light endoscopy and had a similar diagnostic rate compared with HF-EUS. However, HF-EUS had high positive likelihood values for invasion depth staging, suggesting that HF-EUS is a reliable method for confirming invasion depth staging.