Study selection and data collection
Two reviewers, YW and YFR,
independently screened the titles and abstracts of all studies and
subsequently reviewed the full texts to identify the included studies.
The following data were extracted using forms specifically developed for
this systematic evaluation: 1) general information such as authors,
country, and year of publication, 2) study characteristics including
study design, population characteristics (number of patients, age),
components determined by the intervention technique, thresholds for the
use of the intervention, and the gold standard, and 3) DTA measurements,
such as sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and
negative predictive value (NPV), as well as a 2x2 table of columns
reflecting the true number of positives, true negatives, false
positives, and false negatives. Calculated from the 2X2 column linkage
table in the absence of DTA measurements and 95% confidence intervals
provided by the authors[26-28]. Data extraction
was done independently by YW and was confirmed through XL. Two
additional reviewers, YW and YXZ, independently used the Quality
Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 (QUADAS-2) tool[29] to assess the quality of the included
studies. Any disagreements were resolved through consensus and
discussion, with the involvement of a third reviewer, RFZ, if necessary.