RESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the diagnostic value of bronchial lavage P16INK4A promoter methylation and lung cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The databases of PubMed, Medline, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Wanfang were electronically searched by two reviewers to find the suitable studies related to the association between P16INK4A promoter methylation and lung cancer. The P16INK4A promoter methylation rate was extracted from each included individual study. The diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, and area under the receiver operating characteristic ROC curve of bronchial lavage P16INK4A as a biomarker for diagnosis of lung cancer were pooled by stata11.0 software (Stata Corporation, College Station, TX, USA). RESULTS: At last, 10 publications were included in this meta‑analysis. Of the included 10 studies, five are published in English with relatively high quality and other five papers published in Chinese have relatively low quality. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of bronchial lavage P16INK4A promoter methylation for lung cancer diagnosis were 0.61 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.57–0.65) and 0.81 (95% CI: 0.78–0.85), respectively, with random effect model. The ROC curve were calculated and drawn according to Bayes’ theorem by stata11.0 software. The systematic area under the ROC was 0.72 (95% CI: 0.68–0.76), which indicated that the diagnostic value of bronchial lavage P16INK4A promoter methylation for lung cancer was relatively high. Moreover, no significant publication bias was existed in this meta‑analysis (t = 0.69, P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: Bronchial lavage P16INK4A promoter methylation can be a potential biomarker for diagnosis of lung cancer.