Circulating microRNAs as non-invasive biomarkers in endometriosis diagnosis – a systematic review

Any ASRM stage [19] of en-dometriosis, any menstrual stage and any technique for miRNA expression analysis were allowed. Participant or population Patients with endometriosis.Intervention Assesment of circulating biomarkers.Comparator Asymptomatic patients or negative laparoscopy for endometriosis.Study designs to be included Prospective, retrospective or case-control studies.Eligibility criteria 1) article available in English; 2) humans as study subjects; 3) miRNA analysis performed in whole blood, plasma or serum; 4) prospective, retrospective or case-control studies; 5) published in a peer-reviewed journal.Information sources Pubmed + cross-referencing.Main outcome(s) Some but limited overlap was found between the 32 articles included, with a total of 20 miR-NAs reported as dysregulated in endometriosis in two or more studies.MiR-17-5p was reported as dysregulated in six studies, followed by miR-451a and let-7b-5p in four studies and miR-20a-5p, miR-143-3p, miR-199a-5p and miR-3613-5p in three studies.Quality assessment / Risk of bias analysis Not applicable. Strategy of data synthesis No meta-analysis was possible.Subgroup analysis Seperate analysis for serum and plasma.Sensitivity analysis Not performed.