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Review
. 2023 Apr 14;15(8):2308.
doi: 10.3390/cancers15082308.

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis: Volatile Organic Compound Analysis in the Detection of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Cancers

Melina Pelling  1 , Subashini Chandrapalan  2 , Emily West  1 , Ramesh P Arasaradnam  1   3   4   5
Affiliations
Review

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis: Volatile Organic Compound Analysis in the Detection of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Cancers

Melina Pelling et al. Cancers (Basel). .

Abstract

Background: Hepatobiliary cancers are notoriously difficult to detect, frequently leading to diagnosis in later stages of disease when curative treatment is not an option. The currently used biomarkers such as AFP (alpha-fetoprotein) and CA19.9 lack sensitivity and specificity. Hence, there is an unmet need for an alternative biomarker.

Aim: To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for the detection of hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancers.

Methods: A systematic review of VOCs' use in the detection of hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancers was performed. A meta-analysis was performed using the software R. Heterogeneity was explored through meta-regression analysis.

Results: A total of 18 studies looking at 2296 patients were evaluated. Pooled sensitivity and specificity of VOCs for the detection of hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancer were 0.79 (95% CI, 0.72-0.85) and 0.81 (97.5% CI, 0.76-0.85), respectively. The area under the curve was 0.86. Meta-regression analysis showed that the sample media used contributed to heterogeneity. Bile-based VOCs showed the highest precision values, although urine and breath are preferred for their feasibility.

Conclusions: Volatile organic compounds have the potential to be used as an adjunct tool to aid in the early diagnosis of hepatobiliary cancers.

Keywords: gallbladder cancer; hepatocellular cancer; pancreatic cancer; volatile organic compounds.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA flow diagram illustrating the study selection process. * All of the records identified from initial literature search; ** not relevant or did not have a control group or commentaries or abstract publication only.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Forest plot illustrating the performance of volatile organic compounds for the detection of hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancer [30,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Summary receiver operator curve characteristics for volatile organic compounds in the detection of hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancer. The circle represents the confidence interval, and the dots represent the distribution of studies.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Summary receiver operator curve characteristics for breath and urine-based volatile organic compounds in the detection of hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancer. The circles represent the confidence interval, and the dots represent the distribution of studies.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Summary receiver operator curve characteristics for blood and bile-based volatile organic compounds in the detection of hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancer. The circles represent the confidence interval, and the dots represent the distribution of studies.
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