Long non-coding RNA urothelial carcinoma-associated 1 as a tumor biomarker for the diagnosis of urinary bladder cancer.

To investigate the diagnostic value of urothelial carcinoma-associated 1 as a urine biomarker in urinary bladder cancer patients by performing a comprehensive meta-analysis. A comprehensive literature search was conducted by the databases PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, China Knowledge Resource Integrated, and Web of Science. The quality of eligible studies was scored with the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies. The bivariate meta-analysis model was used to pool the sensitivity, specificity, likelihood ratio, and diagnostic odds ratio. Receiver operating characteristic curves and hierarchical summary receiver operating characteristic models were employed to check the overall test performance in this meta-analysis. Seven publications involving 678 patients and 563 controls were included in this meta-analysis. The pooled sensitivity was 0.84 (95% confidence interval: 0.80-0.88), specificity was 0.87 (95% confidence interval: 0.75-0.94), positive likelihood ratio was 6.5 (95% confidence interval: 3.10-13.62), negative likelihood ratio was 0.18 (95% confidence interval: 0.13-0.25), and diagnostic odds ratio was 36 (95% confidence interval: 13-99). The area under the summary receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.89 (95% confidence interval: 0.86-0.91). Our results indicated that urothelial carcinoma-associated 1 was a potential diagnostic biomarker with good specificity and sensitivity in urinary bladder cancer. Further prospective studies with larger cohorts are necessary to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of urothelial carcinoma-associated 1 for urinary bladder cancer.