RESUMO
Objective To evaluate the performance of microRNA‐21(miRNA‐21) for the diagnosis of esophageal cancer .Meth‐ods Published literatures ,investigating the diagnostic performance of miRNA‐21 in esophageal cancer ,were screened .QUADAS‐2 software was used to evaluate the quality of related literatures .All analysis about relevant data was accomplished by using Meta‐DiSc statistical software .The sensitivity ,specificity ,positive likelihood rate ,negative likelihood rate and diagnostic odds ratio were pooled ,using corresponding effects models .Results Four studies met the inclusion criteria ,accumulating 202 esophageal cancer pa‐tients and 124 healthy controls .The summary estimates for miRNA‐21 in the diagnosis of esophageal cancer were with diagnostic sensitivity of 0 .85 and specificity of 0 .65 .The area under summary receiver operating characteristic curve was 0 .817 4 .Conclusion miRNA‐21 might be a novel biomarker for the diagnosis of esophageal cancer ,and could be used for screening and auxiliary diag‐nosis of esophageal cancer .