ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: This study aimed to assess the diagnostic efficacy of contrast-enhanced CT in the screening of extracapsular spread by head and neck cancers. METHODS: Electronic databases, including MEDLINE, EMBASE,CBM,CNKI and SciencePaper Online were searched electronically. Hand-searching was also performed. QUADAS-2 was used by two independent reviewers to assess the methodological quality, and data extraction of included studies was delivered. Meta analysis was conducted via MetaDisc1.4 and STATA 11.0. RESULTS: A total of 8 studies involving 639 participants were included. All studies were retrospective, 1 had high risk of bias, and the remaining had unclear risk of bias. Meta analysis showed that when screening extracapsular spread, contrast-enhanced CT had a pooled sensitivity of 0.67, pooled specificity of 0.84, area under curve of 0.83. CONCLUSIONS: Contrast-enhanced CT is a good tool for diagnosing extracapsular spread by head and neck cancers.
