Background Tuberculosis poses a severe threat to human health. At present, compared with the traditional diagnostic methods for tuberculosis pleural effusion, such as Löwenstein–Jensen culture, pleural biopsy, and Ziehl–Neelsen smear microscopy, Xpert MTB/RIF was regarded as an emerging technology for its efficiency. The Xpert MTB/RIF accuracy for tuberculous pleural effusion diagnosis was evaluated in this systematic study. Materials and methods We searched the relevant literature published before January 2021 in PubMed, Cochrane, EMBASE, and Web of Science databases. Utilizing Review Manager 5.3 software, the quality of the included literature was evaluated based on the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies criteria. Sensitivity, specificity, and the summary receiver operating characteristic curves were plotted and analyzed with Metadisc 1.40 software. We used Stata 12.0 software to evaluate the publication bias of this study. Results Eighteen articles were identified in total. The sensitivity of Xpert MTB/RIF in the pleural effusion was 0.24, and specificity was 1.00, respectively. The area under the summary receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.9737, which indicated that the overall accuracy of the Xpert MTB/RIF was high. In addition, based on the Deeks funnel plot, no publication bias of the study was found. Conclusion Xpert MTB/RIF is a rapid method with high specificity but relatively low sensitivity for detecting Mycobacterium tuberculosis in pleural effusion. Its less sensitivity made it difficult to be used clinically, but the high specificity suggests that it can be used as a specific diagnostic method for tuberculous pleural effusion.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a globally widespread ribonucleic acid virus that transmits through blood and sexual contact. Its morbidity and mortality are particularly higher in economically underdeveloped areas. Therefore, an economical and effective diagnostic method for detection of HCV is urgently needed. In this study, we evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of the SD BIOLINE rapid diagnostic test for HCV detection. We searched for studies related to SD BIOLINE and HCV in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library and then designed inclusion and exclusion criteria. After extracting valid data, the included literature was evaluated with the quality assessment tool Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies. After our data analysis, the sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, diagnostic accuracy, summary receiver operating characteristic curve, funnel plot, box plot, and Fagan plot of the diagnostic method were determined. Nine articles with nine sets of data were finally included. The sensitivity and specificity were 0.94 and 0.98, respectively, the positive likelihood ratio was 79.53, the negative likelihood ratio was 0.05, the diagnostic odds ratio was 1590.32, and the summary receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.9958. The SD BIOLINE test has the advantages of high sensitivity, high specificity, low cost, and easy operation for diagnosing HCV. Therefore, we recommend using SD BIOLINE for rapid and effective screening of HCV, which is especially applicable for economically underdeveloped areas.