Background: Cervical cancer remains a public health problem worldwide especially sub-Saharan Africa. There are challenges in timely screening and diagnosis for early detection and intervention. Therefore, studies on cervical cancer and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia suggest the need for new diagnostic approaches including microRNA technology. Plasma/serum levels of micro RNAs are elevated or reduced compared to the normal state and their diagnostic accuracy for detection of cervical neoplasms has not been rigorously assessed more so in low resource settings such as Uganda. The aim of this systematic review was therefore to assess the diagnostic accuracy of serum microRNAs in detecting cervical cancer.
Methods: We performed a systematic review following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P) statement. We searched for all English articles in MEDLINE/PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, CINAHL, as well as grey literature through 2022. Our outcomes were sensitivity, specificity, negative predictive values, positive predictive values or area under the curve (1) for each microRNA. We used the quality assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies (2) tool to assess risk of bias of included studies. Our results are reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis for Diagnostic Test Accuracy studies (PRISMA-DTA)
Use of the review results: This systematic review will provide information on the relevance of microRNAs in cervical cancer. This information will help policy makers, planners and researchers in determining which particular microRNAs could be employed to screen, diagnose or monitor prognosis of cancer of the cervix.
Systematic review registration: This protocol has been registered in PROSPERO under registration number CRD42022313275.