Prostate cancer antigen 3 as a biomarker in the urine for prostate cancer diagnosis: a meta-analysis.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical value of urine Prostate cancer antigen 3 (PCA3) test in the diagnosis of prostate cancer by pooling the published data.

Methods: The clinical trials about urine PCA3 test in the diagnosis of prostate cancer were searched in the PubMed (January, 1966-July, 2014). Cochrane library (Section 3, 2013), CNKI (March, 1994-July, 2014). All relevant prospective studies of urine PCA3 test in the diagnosis of prostate cancer were screened. The aggregated sensitivity, specificity, positive likely hood ratio (+LR), negative likely hood ratio (-LR), diagnosis odds ratio (DOR) and area under the area under curve (AUC) were calculated by using Meta-disc 1.4 and STATA 11.0 statistic software.

Results: Finally, a total of 13 trials including 3245 subjects were included in this meta-analysis. The pooled sensitivity, specificity, +LR, -LR, DOR and AUC were 0.62 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.59-0.65), 0.75 (95% CI: 0.73-0.76), 6.16 (95% CI: 3.39-11.21), 0.50 (95% CI: 0.43-0.59), 5.49 (95% CI: 3.76-8.019) and 0.75 (95% CI: 0.71-0.78), respectively.

Conclusion: Urine PCA3 test has acceptable sensitivity and specificity in the diagnosis of prostate cancer, which can be used as non-invasive method for diagnosis of prostate cancer.