Abstract

The usefulness of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) CD4/CD8 ratio for diagnosing sarcoidosis has been reported in many studies with variable results. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis to estimate the overall diagnostic accuracy of BALF CD4/CD8 ratio based on the bulk of published evidence. Studies published prior to June 2015 and indexed in PubMed, OVID, Web of Science, Scopus and other databases were evaluated for inclusion. Data on sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR), and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) were pooled from included studies. Summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curves were used to summarize overall test performance. Deekss funnel plot was used to detect publication bias. Sixteen publications with 1885 subjects met our inclusion criteria and were included in this meta-analysis. Summary estimates of the diagnostic performance of the BALF CD4/CD8 ratio were as follows: sensitivity, 0.70 (95%CI 0.64–0.75), specificity, 0.83 (95%CI 0.78–0.86), PLR, 4.04 (95%CI 3.13–5.20), NLR, 0.36 (95%CI 0.30–0.44), and DOR, 11.17 (95%CI 7.31–17.07). The area under the SROC curve was 0.84 (95%CI 0.81–0.87). There was no evidence of publication bias. Measuring the BALF CD4/CD8 ratio may assist in the diagnosis of sarcoidosis when interpreted in parallel with other diagnostic factors.