Hysterosalpingosonography for diagnosing tubal occlusion in subfertile women: a systematic review with meta-analysis
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Bibliographic record
Abstract
STUDY QUESTION: Is hysterosalpingosonography (sono-HSG) an accurate test for diagnosing tubal occlusion in subfertile women and how does it perform compared with hysterosalpingography (HSG)? SUMMARY ANSWER: sono-HSG is an accurate test for diagnosing tubal occlusion and performs similarly to HSG. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: sono-HSG and HSG are both short, well-tolerated outpatient procedures. However, sono-HSG has the advantage over HSG of obviating ionizing radiation and the risk of iodine allergy, being associated with a greater sensitivity and specificity in detecting anomalies of the uterine cavity and permitting concomitant visualization of the ovaries and myometrium. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION: A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies published in any language before 14 November 2012 were performed. All studies assessing the accuracy of sono-HSG for diagnosing tubal occlusion in a subfertile female population were considered. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS: We searched Medline, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science and Biosis as well as related articles, citations and reference lists. Diagnostic studies were eligible if they compared sono-HSG (±HSG) to laparoscopy with chromotubation in women suffering from subfertility. Two authors independently screened for eligibility, extracted data and assessed the quality of included studies. Risk of bias and applicability concerns were investigated according to the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Study (QUADAS-2). Bivariate random-effects models were used to estimate pooled sensitivity and specificity with their 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs), to generate summary receiver operating characteristic curves and to evaluate sources of heterogeneity. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE: Of the 4221 citations identified, 30 studies were eligible. Of the latter, 28 reported results per individual tube and were included in the meta-analysis, representing a total of 1551 women and 2740 tubes. In nine studies, all participants underwent HSG in addition to sono-HSG and laparoscopy, allowing direct comparison of the accuracy of sono-HSG and HSG. Pooled estimates of sensitivity and specificity of sono-HSG were 0.92 (95% CI: 0.82-0.96) and 0.95 (95% CI: 0.90-0.97), respectively. In nine studies (582 women, 1055 tubes), sono-HSG and HSG were both compared with laparoscopy, giving pooled estimates of sensitivity and specificity of 0.95 (95% CI: 0.78-0.99) and 0.93 (95% CI: 0.89-0.96) for sono-HSG, and 0.94 (95% CI: 0.74-0.99) and 0.92 (95% CI: 0.87-0.95) for HSG, respectively. Doppler sonography was associated with significantly greater sensitivity and specificity of sono-HSG compared with its non-use (0.93 and 0.95 versus 0.86 and 0.89, respectively, P = 0.0497). Sensitivity analysis regarding methodological quality of studies was consistent with these findings. We also found no benefit of the commercially available contrast media over saline solution in regard to the diagnostic accuracy of sono-HSG. LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION: Methodological quality varied greatly between studies. However, sensitivity analysis, taking methodological quality of studies into account, did not modify the results. This systematic review did not allow the distinction between distal and proximal occlusion. This could be interesting to take into account in further studies, as the performance of the test may differ for each localization. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS: Given our findings and the known benefits of sono-HSG over HSG in the context of subfertility, sono-HSG should replace HSG in the initial workup of subfertile couples. STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S): This study was funded by personal funds. There are no conflicts of interest to declare. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: This review has been registered at PROSPERO: Registration number #CRD42013003829.
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Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.008 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it