Meta-analysis of the diagnostic efficiency of the questionnaires screening for schistosomiasis

Abstract

Schistosomiasis is the second widespread tropical disease that affects the health of over 240 million people of 78 countries. Questionnaires have been commonly used to diagnose schistosomiasis, while no meta-analysis of their efficacy had been reported previously. This meta-analysis was conducted to assess their diagnostic accuracy of schistosomiasis. Studies published prior to December 1, 2014, that had used questionnaires as a diagnostic tool were searched in PubMed, Medline, EMBASE, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database. A total of 32 studies with 72,812 cases were identified for the meta-analysis. The best diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) was obtained from Schistosoma haematobium (67.68, 95 % confidence interval (CI) = 31.48 to 145.54), followed by Schistosoma japonicum (11.74, 95 % CI = 4.59 to 30.05) then Schistosoma mansoni (2.98, 95 % CI = 1.95 to 4.54). Pooled sensitivity and specificity were respectively 0.82, 0.88, and 0.46, and 0.59, 0.86, and 0.81 for S. japonicum, S. haematobium, and S. mansoni. The multivariable subgroup analyses showed that the questionnaires which had been pretested and standardized had better diagnostic performance. The result suggested that questionnaires can be used to diagnose schistosomiasis with moderate sensitivity and specificity and the questionnaires for diagnosing S. haematobium performed best.

Effectiveness of Screening and Treatment Approaches for Schistosomiasis and Strongyloidiasis in Newly-Arrived Migrants from Endemic Countries in the EU/EEA: A Systematic Review

“…The first systematic search yielded, after removal of duplicates, 662 systematic reviews for which we screened titles and abstracts. Of the 26 systematic reviews selected for full-text screening, we included 11 systematic reviews which focused on the efficacy of diagnosis and treatment of schistosomiasis ( n = 8) and strongyloidiasis ( n = 3) (Figure 1) [19,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53]. The updated systematic search for diagnostic testing accuracy studies for schistosomiasis yielded after de-duplication 1961 citations for the screening of titles and abstracts.…”

“…We assessed diagnostic and screening tools for Schistosoma spp. in five included systematic reviews [44,45,46,50,53] and eight individual studies [54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61]. The best performing tests were included in the GRADE summary of finding on diagnostic tools for screening schistosomiasis (Table 4 and Figure 5).…”

“…Furthermore, a meta-analysis on the diagnostic efficiency of questionnaire screening for schistosomiasis reported sensitivity and specificity values of 85% (95% CI: 84–86) and 94% (95% CI: 94–94) for Sc. haematobium infections (low-quality evidence) (Table 4) [50].…”

“…Overall, systematic reviews showed that antibody-detecting serological tests are the most effective screening tests for detection of schistosomiasis and strongyloidiasis in low-endemicity settings, because they have higher sensitivity than conventional parasitological methods [19,44,45,50,53]. Newer serological tests were shown to be more effective than conventional techniques such as agar plate culture and the Baermann method for strongyloidiasis and KK for Sc.…”

The validity of the Questionnaire to identify Schistosoma haematobium infection

“…Fen Yang et al, (2015). The study for the validity of the questionnaire showed that; diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) was obtained from Schistosoma haematobium (67.68, 95 % confidence interval (CI)=31.48 to145.54), sensitivity 96%, specificity 86%, AUC was 0.96 (26) .…”