A systematic review and meta-analysis of the diagnostic effectiveness of human papillomavirus methylation biomarkers for detection of cervical cancer

• Published in: Epigenomics 2022-09, Vol.14 (18), p.1055-1072
• Main Authors: Hillyar, Christopher Rt, Kanabar, Shivani S, Pufal, Kamil R, Lawson, Alexander W, Saw Hee, Joshua Li, Rallis, Kathrine S, Nibber, Anjan, Sideris, Michail
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Alphapapillomavirus; biomarker; Biomarkers; cancer; cervical cancer; DNA; Early Detection of Cancer; epigenetics; Female; HPV; Humans; Methylation; Papillomaviridae - genetics; Papillomavirus Infections - diagnosis; Precancerous Conditions - diagnosis; ROC; sensitivity; specificity; Uterine Cervical Dysplasia - diagnosis; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms - diagnosis
• ISSN: 1750-1911; 1750-192X
• DOI: 10.2217/epi-2022-0160

The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to assess the evidence for the diagnostic effectiveness of human papillomavirus (HPV) methylation biomarkers for detection of cervical cancer. PubMed, Embase and Web of Science were searched. Nine articles focusing on HPV methylation for detection of precancerous and cancerous cervical lesions were included. The QUADAS-2 tool was used for quality assessment. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) was the main diagnostic performance parameter extracted. Of the nine articles included in this study, seven were of moderate quality and two were of high quality. A meta-analysis of the ROC for 27 HPV methylation biomarkers revealed an overall pooled ROC of 0.770 (95% CI: 0.720–0.819; I : 98.4%; Q: 1537.4; p  0.900), 17 were moderate (ROC: 0.7000–0.8999) and six were poor (ROC  0.900), 17 had moderate diagnostic ability (ROC: 0.7000–0.8999) and six had low diagnostic ability (ROC