Previous Meta-Analyses of HNC
| Study | Year | Country | No. of studies | No. of patients | Classification | Effect size |
| Yongkui et al. (29) | 2013 | China | 14 | 742 | Pretreatment, staging, detection of regional nodal metastasis | Sensitivity/specificity |
| Xu et al. (31) | 2012 | China | 8 | 1,147 | Pretreatment, staging, detection of distant malignancies | Sensitivity/specificity |
| Xu et al. (32) | 2011 | China | 12 | 1,276 | Pretreatment, staging, detection of distant metastases and second primary cancers | Sensitivity/specificity |
| Kyzas et al. (30) | 2008 | Greece | 32 | 1,236 | Pretreatment, staging, detection of cervical node metastases | Sensitivity/specificity |
| Yi et al. (33) | 2013 | China | 17 | 2,912 | Pretreatment, staging, detection of bone metastasis | Sensitivity/specificity |
| Xu et al. (34) | 2011 | China | 15 | 1,445 | Pretreatment, staging, detection of distant metastasis | Sensitivity/specificity |
| Isles et al. (36) | 2008 | United Kingdom | 27 | 917 | Posttreatment, follow-up, detection of residual or recurrent disease after chemoradiotherapy | Sensitivity/specificity |
| Gupta et al. (35) | 2011 | India | 51 | 2,335 | Posttreatment, follow-up, detection of residual or recurrent disease or metastasis | Sensitivity/specificity |
| Zhang et al. (37) | 2010 | China | 8 | 495 | Prognosis, DFS/OS | Risk ratio |
| Xie et al. (38) | 2011 | China | 26 | 1,415 | Prognosis, DFS/OS/LRC | Odds ratio |
DFS = disease-free survival; LRC = locoregional control.