Assessment of the effectiveness of neoadjuvant chemotherapy for rectal cancer by MRI and PETCT: a meta-analysis

A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Positron Emission Tomography Computed Tomography (PETCT) in assessing the effects of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (nCRT) for Rectal cancer (RC) was performed to provide a reference for better clinical assessment in the future.

Relevant literature on the assessment of the effects of MRI and PETCT on RC nCRT was screened through PubMed, Cochrane, EMBAS and other literature databases, and the final literature for analysis was determined after cross-screening by two study team members. Review Manager 5.3 software was used to assess the quality of the literature and extract relevant information such as authors, year of publication, and results, and meta-analysis was performed using Stata 15.1 software.

Through screening, six references were finally included, totaling 396 cases of study subjects, and the results of literature quality evaluation showed that the selected literature was of high quality and had some reference value. Meta-analysis revealed a sensitivity of 0.76 and a specificity of 0.74 for the final combination of MRI; the sensitivity and specificity of the final combined PETCT were 0.78 and 0.71, respectively.  Deek’s test showed P>0.05 for both MRI and PETCT, with no publication bias.

MRI and PETCT are similarly effective in predicting the effect of RC nCRT.