Diagnosis of lower gastrointestinal bleeding by multi-slice CT angiography: A meta-analysis

Abstract Purpose To estimate the diagnostic value of multi-slice spiral CT angiography (CTA) in lower gastrointestinal bleeding by a meta-analysis. Methods The relevant clinical studies on the diagnostic value of CTA were searched on PubMed, Embase and other electronic documents databases with the deadline of 2016 September. Language was limited to English. A diagnostic meta-analysis was performed by using Meta-DiSc software. The effect sizes included sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR), and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) and 95% confidence interval ( CI ). The Cochran-Q test and I 2 statistic based on χ 2 test were used for estimation of the heterogeneity. Meta-regression was performed to explore the source of heterogeneity. SROC curve was established. Results A total of 14 articles including 549 patients with lower gastrointestinal bleeding were enrolled in the meta-analysis. The combined PLR, NLR and DOR were respectively 8.149, 0.158 and 56.213. There were significant heterogeneities in all estimations but we could not find the sources by meta-regression based on study design, study location, CT slices and sample size. The AUC and Q index under the fixed effect model was respectively 0.9463 and 0.8856. Conclusions The multi-slice CTA has high diagnostic value for lower gastrointestinal bleeding.