The Value of Pepsinogen in GC Screening: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND: The current gold standard for gastric cancer (GC) screening is pathology or a barium meal followed by X-ray. This is not applicable to a wide range of screening capabilities due to the lack of operability. This article used a meta-analysis to evaluate the value of pepsinogen (PG) screening for GC. METHODS: PubMed, EMbase, the Cochrane Library, CNKI, WanFang, VIP, and CBM databases were systematically searched for published studies that used serum PG to diagnose GC. Articles were searched from January 2003 to January 2018. Two reviewers independently screened the literature according to specified inclusion and exclusion criteria. The data were extracted and evaluated, and the quality of the methodologies evaluated using the QUADAS entry. The meta-analysis (MA) was performed using Meta-DiSc 1.4 software. Stata 12.0 software was used to assess publication bias. RESULTS: A total of 19 studies were finally included from a total of 169,009 cases. The MA showed a combined sensitivity and specificity of 0.56 (95% CI (0.53-0.59), P < 0.01) and 0.71 (95% CI (0.70-0.71), P < 0.01), respectively. The combined likelihood ratios were +LR = 2.82 (95% CI (2.06-3.86), P < 0.01) and -LR = 0.56 (95% CI (0.45-0.68), P < 0.01). The combined DOR was 5.41 (95% CI (3.64~ 8.06), P < 0.01), and the area under the SROC curve was 0.7468. CONCLUSIONS: Serum PG provides medium levels of sensitivity and specificity for GC assessment. To be used in a clinical setting, further high-quality research must be performed and verified.

Comparative efficacy of interventions for reducing injection and sexual risk behaviours to prevent HIV in injection drug users: protocol for Bayesian network meta-analysis.

INTRODUCTION: Drug users are more vulnerable to AIDS than the general population. While several interventions are effective for addressing HIV in injection drug users, no meta-analysis has yet been performed to compare interventions and determine the relative benefits of each. We intend to conduct a Bayesian network meta-analysis to compare all available interventions evaluated by a randomised controlled trial for reducing injection and risky sexual behaviours for the prevention of HIV in injection drug users. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Studies will be retrieved by searching the following databases: MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials. The search will be performed between May and July 2018 for the literature published between 1980 and May 2018. Two authors will extract data independently. Primary outcome measures will be injection risk behaviour and HIV risk behaviour. HIV seroconversion, confirmed using an antibody test, will be the secondary outcome. Bayesian network meta-analyses will be conducted using the Markov Chains Monte Carlo method. The Cochrane revised tool, Risk of Bias, will be used to assess the risk of bias. Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation will be used to assess evidence quality. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The results of this study will be disseminated at professional conferences and via publications in peer-reviewed journals. This study will not include any confidential personal data or data on human trials; therefore, ethical approval is not required. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42018086999.

Prevalence of nonsuicidal self-injury in chinese middle school and high school students: A meta-analysis.

Recent studies have revealed a high rate of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) behavior in Chinese students, but quantitative syntheses of pooled prevalence are sparse. There have been several NSSI prevalence meta-analyses in other populations. However, given the existence of cultural diversity, racial difference, educational system difference and so on, these results may not be ideal for Chinese populations. Furthermore, the above-mentioned meta-analyses did not include Chinese database which may have led to unintentional bias. Thus, we conducted this meta-analysis to estimate the prevalence of NSSI in Chinese middle-school students.The databases searched included PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, CBM (Chinese database), Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Data (Chinese database) and the Weipu database (Chinese database). The search terms included: self-injury/self-harm/self-abuse/nonsuicidal self-injury/deliberate self-harm, adolescen*/youth/teen/students, and China/Chinese. All relevant articles published between January 2000 to November 2017, in either Chinese or English, were included. Two investigators were engaged in this process, and any disagreements were settled by a third investigator. A random effects model was then used to calculate the pooled prevalence.A total of 420 studies with 160,348 participants were retrieved. The pooled prevalence was 22.37% (95% CI: 18.84%-25.70%). Substantial heterogeneity in prevalence estimates was revealed. Subgroup analyses showed that the pooled estimate of prevalence of life time NSSI was 14.5% (95%CI: 0.06%-22.7%), and 6-24 months NSSI was23.3% (95%CI: 20.5%-26.1%). The prevalence for males was 20.6% (95% CI: 16.1%-25.0%), and for females was 21.9% (95% CI: 17.6%-26.2%).The prevalence of NSSI in Chinese middle-school students is relatively high. More attention should be paid to the current situation.