Diagnostic Ability of Fluid-Attenuated Inversion Recovery MR Imaging to Detect Remnant or Recurrent Meningiomas after Resection

Diagnostic Performance of Increased Signal Intensity Within the Resection Cavity on Fluid-Attenuated Inversion Recovery Sequences for Detection of Progression in Patients with Glioma

OBJECTIVE

To systematically evaluate the diagnostic performance of increased signal intensity within the resection cavity on fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) sequences for detection of progression in patients with glioma through performing a meta-analysis.

METHODS

PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Cochrane Library, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure were searched for potentially relevant literature. The study characteristics and relevant data were extracted. We estimated the pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratios, negative likelihood ratios, and diagnostic odds ratio and constructed summary receiver operating characteristics curves to identify the diagnostic value of FLAIR signal increase for detection of glioma progression.

RESULTS

A total of 4 studies with 438 patients were included. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of increased signal intensity in FLAIR sequences in the resection cavity for detection of glioma progression were 0.36 (95% confidence interval 0.31-0.42) and 0.93 (95% confidence interval 0.86-0.97), respectively. The area under the curve was 0.7505. Subgroup analyses also were performed according to different patient sources, tumor grades, and definitions of progression. No significant publication bias was found in the meta-analysis (P = 0.85).

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggested that increased signal intensity within the resection cavity on FLAIR sequences could indicate tumor progression early with high specificity in patients with glioma. This readily accessible sign could implicate closer monitoring and could be crucial for therapeutic decisions and outcome. However, because of the limited number of studies, more well-designed studies are warranted to further verify our results and elucidate the underlining mechanisms.