SynthesisFrontiers in pharmacology2025
Effect of serum MMP-7 on the diagnostic accuracy of biliary atresia: systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Frontiers in pharmacology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Non-Invasive Biomarkers for Assessing Liver Fibrosis in Biliary Atresia: A Literature Review.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- From bench to bedside: Molecular mechanisms, diagnostic tools, and therapeutic strategies in liver fibrosis.Liver research (Beijing, China) · 2026Review
- Biliary atresia-related liver fibrosis.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2026Review
- Serum matrix metalloproteinase-7 as a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in primary biliary cholangitis.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- Development and validation of a screening model for early diagnosis of biliary atresia in neonates with cholestasis.Pediatric surgery international · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Biliary atresia (BA) is an obstructive fibrotic disorder that typically progresses to cirrhosis and, ultimately, death in children. Current gold standard diagnostics for BA include intraoperative cholangiography and liver biopsy, both invasive procedures with significant complication risks. Matrix metalloproteinase-7 (MMP-7) has emerged as a highly accurate noninvasive diagnostic biomarker for BA. This study therefore aimed to evaluate the diagnostic utility of serum MMP-7 for BA detection. Methods: We performed a comprehensive search of English-language databases (PubMed, Web of Science, ScienceDirect) with literature from the inception of these databases through 30 November 2024. Study quality was assessed using the QUADAS-2 tool. Sensitivity, specificity, positive/negative likelihood ratios (PLR/NLR), and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC-ROC) were calculated using Meta-DiSc 1.4 and STATA 18.0. Results: This systematic review and meta-analysis included 13 articles (17 studies) comprising 2,836 serum samples from pediatric subjects. Binary classification model analysis showed pooled sensitivity of 0.93 (95% CI: 0.92-0.94) and specificity of 0.85 (95% CI: 0.83-0.87) for MMP-7. Positive likelihood ratio (PLR) was 7.68 (95%CI: 5.04-11.72), the negative likelihood ratio (NLR) was 0.08 (95%CI: 0.05-0.14), and the diagnosis odds ratio (DOR) was 104.34 (95%CI: 55.97-194.51). AUC was 0.9628. Meta-regression analysis identified publication year as a significant heterogeneity source (p = 0.007). Sensitivity analysis confirmed the robust diagnostic stability of MMP-7 for BA. Significant heterogeneity was observed across studies (I Conclusion: Serum MMP-7 represents a convenient, accurate, and reliable noninvasive biomarker for enhancing BA diagnostic efficiency. However, due to significant heterogeneity, further validation via large-scale, multicenter studies with standardized protocols is needed. Systematic Review Registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/recorddashboard, identifier CRD42024623643.
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