ArticleDiscover oncology2025
Diagnostic performance of contrast-enhanced ultrasonography for predicting therapeutic response to radiofrequency ablation in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma: a meta-analysis.
Article in Discover oncology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeContrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) is frequently used to detect residual or recurrent liver cancer following radiofrequency ablation (RFA) therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, disagreements persist regarding its diagnostic efficacy. This study aimed to assess the diagnostic value of contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS) for detecting residual or recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after radiofrequency ablation (RFA) using a meta-analytic approach.
methodsPubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library were searched for studies published up to March 2024. The diagnostic value of CEUS was assessed using sensitivity, specificity, PLR, NLR, diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), and area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC).
resultsThis meta-analysis included 13 studies with 802 HCC patients (964 lesions). CEUS demonstrated high sensitivity (0.88, 95% CI: 0.80-0.93) and specificity (0.98, 95% CI: 0.96-0.99) for detecting residual or recurrent tumors after RFA. The positive likelihood ratio (PLR) was 46.88 (95% CI: 20.69-106.24) and the negative likelihood ratio (NLR) was 0.12 (95% CI: 0.07-0.21). The diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) was 222.77 (95% CI: 100.23-495.16), with an AUC of 0.96 (95% CI: 0.94-0.97). Factors such as publication year, study design, ethnicity, blinding, patient age, contrast agent usage, and reference tests were found to influence CEUS's diagnostic accuracy.
conclusionCEUS exhibited excellent diagnostic performance for detecting residual or recurrent tumors in HCC patients after RFA. Therefore, it should be employed in clinical practice for evaluating therapeutic response to RFA. Registration Number INPLASY202440089.
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.