Can cholesterol be used to distinguish pleural exudates from transudates? evidence from a bivariate meta-analysis

BMC Pulmonary Medicine

Table 1 Clinical summary of included studies examining the diagnostic accuracy of pleural cholesterol level

Study (ref no.)	Year	Country	No. patients		Standard	Method	Cut-off (mg/l)	TP	FP	FN	TN	QUADAS score	Misclassified*
Study (ref no.)	Year	Country	Exu	Trans	Standard	Method	Cut-off (mg/l)	TP	FP	FN	TN	QUADAS score	Misclassified*
Hamm H [16]	1987	Germany	31	31	Clinical criteria	ECM	60	28	3	3	28	8	9/30
Valdés L [17]	1991	Spain	188	65	Clinical criteria	ECM	55	171	0	17	65	9	14/65
Romero S [18]	1993	Spain	253	44	Clinical criteria	ECM	60	206	4	47	40	8	10/44
Burgess LJ [19]	1995	South Africa	270	123	Clinical criteria	ESM	50	184	11	86	112	7	19/112
Costa M [20]	1995	Chile	131	49	Clinical criteria	ECM	45	118	0	13	49	9	9/49
Gil Suay V [21]	1995	Spain	156	48	Clinical criteria	ECM	54	149	4	7	44	8	17/48
Garcia-Pachon E [22]	1996	Spain	118	35	Clinical criteria	NA	50	107	1	11	34	10	9/35
Kalayci AG [23]	1996	Turkey	40	20	Clinical criteria	ECM	40	36	1	4	19	9	NA
Metintaş M [24]	1997	Turkey	72	21	Clinical criteria	ECM	60	54	3	18	18	10	4/21
Gázquez I [25]	1998	Spain	155	38	Clinical criteria	ECM	50	130	6	25	32	7	11/38
Romero S [26]	2000	Spain	182	61	Clinical criteria	ECM	60	155	5	27	56	9	9/61
Yilmaz A [27]	2000	Turkey	150	105	Clinical criteria	ECM	60	143	4	7	101	8	13/105
Porcel JM [28]	2001	Spain	139	32	Clinical criteria	ECM	60	111	1	28	31	9	8/32
Alexandrakis MG [29]	2002	Greece	82	24	Light's criteria	NA	65	76	0	6	24	10	NA
Guleria R [30]	2003	India	50	25	Clinical criteria	NA	60	44	0	6	25	9	5/25
Leers MP [31]	2007	Netherlands	300	108	Clinical criteria	ECM	60	227	2	73	106	11	29/108
Razi E [32]	2008	Iran	70	49	Light's criteria	NA	38	61	10	9	39	8	NA
Hamal AB [33]	2013	Nepal	43	19	Clinical criteria	ECM	45	42	0	1	19	12	NA
Patel AK [34]	2013	India	49	11	Clinical criteria	NA	60	48	0	1	11	11	0/11

Abbreviations: ECM, enzymatic colorimetric method; ESM, enzymatic spectrophotometric method; Exu, pleural exudate; Trans, transudate; TP, no. of true positives; FP, no. of false positives; FN, no. of false negatives; NA, not applicable; TN, no. of true negatives; QUADAS, quality assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies.
*No. of transudates misclassified as exudates based on Light’s criteria (misclassifications/total).

ISSN: 1471-2466