SynthesisAnnals of family medicine2018
Digital Rectal Examination for Prostate Cancer Screening in Primary Care: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Synthesis in Annals of family medicine, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to 2 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 111 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Radical Prostatectomy Without Prostate Biopsy Following 18F-PSMA-1007 PET/CT Based on a Diagnostic Model: a Single-center, Single-arm, Open-label Study
Conducting Active Surveillance Without Prostate Biopsy for Patients With Low-risk Suspected Prostate Cancer Based on USTC Diagnostic Model and PSA Level: a Multicenter Prospective Study
Who cites it
111 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 266 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Benefits and Harms of Screening for Prostate Cancer in Adults Aged 18 Years and Older: A Systematic Review.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2026Pooled it
- Exosomal Liquid Biopsy in Prostate Cancer: A Systematic Review of Biomarkers for Diagnosis, Prognosis, and Treatment Response.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Pooled it
- Systematic Review of Commercially Available Mobile Phone Applications for Prostate Cancer Education.American journal of men's healthPooled it
- Low Testosterone Level and Mortality Risk in Patients With Prostate Cancer: A Post-Randomization Analysis.Cancer medicine · 2025Trial
- Present status of prostate cancer diagnosis, limitations, challenges, and future endeavors.Annals of medicine · 2026Review
- Prospective validation of a urine-based proteomics test for predicting clinically significant prostate cancer in biopsy-naïve patients.British journal of cancer · 2026Article
- Incorporating Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms to Predict the Risk of Positive Prostate Magnetic Resonance Imaging.European urology open science · 2026Article
- Large-Scale Multi-Cancer Detection by Learning Segmentation from Reports.Research square · 2026Article
- Diagnosis of Prostate Cancer: A Comparative Evaluation of Biological Techniques.Diseases (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Comparison of prostate cancer diagnostic models based on PCA3 and TMPRSS2:ERG RNA biomarkers from post-DRE and non-DRE urine specimens.World journal of urology · 2026Article
- Prostate Cancer Screening: Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices by Medical Doctors in Portugal.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2026Article
- Development and validation of a clinical nomogram based on lasso-logistic regression for predicting prostate cancer with PSA 4-20.0 ng/mL: a retrospective study.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2026Article
- Philippine Clinical Practice Guidelines for Periodic Health Examination: Screening for Neoplastic Diseases.Acta medica Philippina · 2026Article
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- Digital rectal exam vs. electronic "digitized" prostate exam.BMC urology · 2025Article
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- Review
- Single-layer biosensor for urinary prostate-cancer biomarkers through transition-metal-doped graphene: a DFT study.RSC advances · 2025Article
51 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeAlthough the digital rectal examination (DRE) is commonly performed to screen for prostate cancer, there is limited data to support its use in primary care. This review and meta-analysis aims to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of DRE in screening for prostate cancer in primary care settings.
methodsWe searched MEDLINE, Embase, DARE (Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) from their inception to June 2016. Six reviewers, in pairs, independently screened citations for eligibility and extracted data. Pooled estimates were calculated for sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of DRE in primary care settings using an inverse-variance meta-analysis. We used QUADAS-2 (Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies 2) and GRADE (Grades of Recommendation Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) guidelines to assess study risk of bias and quality.
resultsOur search yielded 8,217 studies, of which 7 studies with 9,241 patients were included after the screening process. All patients analyzed underwent both DRE and biopsy. Pooled sensitivity of DRE performed by primary care clinicians was 0.51 (95% CI, 0.36-0.67; I
conclusionGiven the considerable lack of evidence supporting its efficacy, we recommend against routine performance of DRE to screen for prostate cancer in the primary care setting.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.