Objective To quantitatively evaluate the diagnostic value of variable-
temperature and isothermal
nucleic acid amplification techniques in the
detection of
schistosomiasis japonica using a
meta-analysis.
Methods The
publications pertaining to the
nucleic acid detection of
schistosomiasis japonica were searched in
electronic databases, including
Chinese National
Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Data,
PubMed and ScienceDirect, and the compilations and proceedings of
schistosomiasis were manually searched. In addition, the citations of
publications associated with the
nucleic acid detection of
schistosomiasis japonica were traced using a
document tracing
method. The retrieved
literatures were screened according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and data were extracted from the included
literatures. The quality of the included
literatures was assessed using the
software RevMan version 5.3, and a
meta-analysis was performed using the
software MetaDiSc version 1.4. Results A total of 19
publications covering 24 groups of studies were enrolled, including 5
Chinese publications and 14 English
publications. There were 17 groups of studies
reporting the comparison between the variable-
temperature nucleic acid amplification technique and the golden standard, and 7 groups of studies showing the comparison between the isothermal
nucleic acid amplification technique and the golden standard. Assessment of the
literature quality indicated a
minor overall
bias of the included
literatures, and the Deek funnel plot showed a possible
publication bias in the
documents reports variable-
temperature nucleic acid amplification techniques. There was a heterogeneity caused by non-threshold effect among the studies associated with the variable-
temperature amplification
technique, and the random effects model was therefore used to combine the effects. The pooled
sensitivity and specificity of the variable-
temperature amplification
technique were 0.81 (0.79 to 0.83) and 0.73 (0.71 to 0.74) for the
diagnosis of
schistosomiasis japonica, and area under the SROC curve was 0.944 3. There was no heterogeneity among the studies associated with the isothermal amplification
technique, and the fixed effects model was therefore used to combine the effects. The pooled
sensitivity and specificity of the isothermal amplification
technique were 0.96 (0.94 to 0.98) and 0.95 (0.94 to 0.97) for the
diagnosis of
schistosomiasis japonica, and area under the SROC curve was 0.989 9. Conclusions Both variable-
temperature and isothermal
nucleic acid amplification techniques have a high
efficiency for the
diagnosis of
schistosomiasis japonica, and the isothermal amplification
technique shows a relatively higher accuracy than the variable-
temperature amplification
technique.