A meta-analysis on diagnostic accuracy of serum HLA-G level in breast cancer

ABSTRACT Background: According to the role of human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-G in tumor progression and tumor escape from immune system as well as diagnostic role of biomarkers in breast cancer, this meta-analysis is designed to reach a pooled diagnostic accuracy for this biomarker. Methods: The present work is a meta-analysis on diagnostic accuracy studies using preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses guideline. All documents studying the serum level of HLA-G both in breast cancer patients and in healthy controls using receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve with reporting area under ROC curve (AUC) were eligible for inclusion. Results: Five articles including 754 participants were eligible for quantitative synthesis. The range of AUC of the selected studies was 0.735–0.953. The pooled AUC was 0.922 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.903–0.941) based on fixed effect model (P < 0.001) and 0.896 (95% CI 0.834–0.959) based on random effect model (P < 0.001). Conclusion: This meta-analysis updated the level of evidence for using serum HLA-G in diagnosis of breast cancer. However, this piece of evidence cannot be used as a diagnostic tool. This biomarker can be used for investigation of recurrence and response to treatment in future. Further studies are suggested to complete this evidence gap.