Diagnostic value of urine prostate cancer antigen 3 test using a cutoff value of 35 μg/L in patients with prostate cancer

The aim of this study is to explore the diagnostic role of urine prostate cancer antigen 3 (PCA3) in detecting prostate cancer (PCa) through a systematic review and meta-analysis. Relevant research studies aiming at the application of urine PCA3 level in PCa diagnosis were searched in PubMed, Embase, Chinese Biomedical Database (CBM), Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), VIP, and Wan Fang databases independently, which were published up to May 8, 2014. The pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive diagnostic likelihood ratio (DLR+), negative diagnostic likelihood ratio (DLR−), diagnostic odds ratio, and the area under the summary receiver operating characteristic were used to evaluate the value of urine PCA3 in diagnosis of PCa by using the Meta-DiSc and STATA 12.0 statistical software. Sixteen research studies with a total 2,457 PCa patients and 4,236 control individuals were included in this meta-analysis. Overall, the results showed sensitivity and specificity of urine PCA3 in the diagnosis of PCa was 0.57 (95 % CI = 0.55–0.59), and 0.71 (95 % CI = 0.70–0.73), respectively. The DLR + and PLR − in the diagnosis of PCa were 2.12 (95 % CI = 1.89–2.38), and 0.55 (95 % CI = 0. 50–0.61), respectively. The pooled diagnostic odds ratio was 3.93 (95 % CI = 3.28–4.72). The area under the curve (AUCs) and *Q index estimate were 0.7118 and 0.6623, respectively. Urine PCA3 is a potential biomarker for the diagnosis of PCa. However, further well-designed studies with large samples will be needed to confirm the results got from present meta-analysis.