Accuracy of diagnostic tests for perilymphatic fistula: protocol for a systematic review

Maksym Situkho; Tetsuo Ikezono; Marte Myhrum; Arne Kirkhorn Rødvik; Yukihide Maeda; Han Matsuda; Masafumi Sawada; Greg Eigner Jablonski

doi:10.3389/fneur.2024.1500780

Accuracy of diagnostic tests for perilymphatic fistula: protocol for a systematic review

Front Neurol. 2024 Nov 18:15:1500780. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2024.1500780. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Maksym Situkho^{1

2}, Tetsuo Ikezono³, Marte Myhrum^{1

2}, Arne Kirkhorn Rødvik¹, Yukihide Maeda³, Han Matsuda³, Masafumi Sawada³, Greg Eigner Jablonski^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway.
² Institute for Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
³ Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Faculty of Medicine, Saitama Medical University, Saitama, Japan.

Abstract

Perilymphatic fistula (PLF) is a challenging inner ear condition, characterized by the abnormal connection between inner and middle ear and subsequent leakage of inner ear liquid (perilymph) into the middle ear. Early surgical intervention for PLF might lead to favorable audiological and vestibular outcomes. The conventional reference standard of PLF detection is the intraoperative visualization of perilymph leakage during explorative tympanotomy or endoscopic inspection; the specificity and sensitivity of this method is unknown. Systematic reviews assessing the accuracy of diagnostic tests for PLF are not available.

Objective: To systematically review the literature for qualitative evidence exploring the diagnostic tests for the PLF diagnosis. The proposed systematic review will answer the following question: What is the accuracy of diagnostic tests in detecting perilymphatic fistula in humans?

Methods: Eligibility criteria: original peer-reviewed articles regarding studies on humans of any age containing data with diagnostic test accuracy estimation (sensitivity and specificity) for PLF diagnosis or in which diagnostic test accuracy could be calculated based on data provided, without language, study design or study date limits. MEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Scopus, and Web of Science will be searched for eligible articles. Additional manual searches will be performed. Covidence software will be used for title and abstract screening, full text review and data extraction. The risk of bias assessment will be conducted using the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Test Accuracy 2 (QUADAS-2) tool. If two or more high-quality articles evaluating the same diagnostic test will be identified, their findings will be quantitatively synthesized; if a quantitative synthesis is not feasible, the results will be described in a narrative summary. Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations (GRADE) framework will be used to evaluate evidence strength. Study funded by Oslo University Hospital.

Keywords: biomarkers; diagnostic test accuracy; perilymphatic fistula; systematic review; vestibular disorders.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research is funded by the Oslo University Hospital, Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery. Non-financial sources of support. The University of Oslo provided access to Covidence software for systematic reviews. Oslo University Hospital, University of Oslo and Saitama Medical University granted access to scientific databases.