The performance of first‐trimester ultrasound in diagnosing fetal cleft palate: Meta‐analysis and systematic review

This system review and meta-analysis was aim to evaluate the accuracy of prenatal ultrasound in diagnosing cleft palates (CPs) during first trimester.We systematically searched the databases of PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library for the articles, which assessed the accuracy of CPs diagnosed by ultrasound during first trimester.The characteristics of the included studies were recorded. The quality of included studies was assessed by QUADAS-2. The pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), and the area under the curve (AUC) were calculated using Meta-Disc software version 1.4. The publication bias was assessed by Stata software version 12.0.This meta-analysis included 13 studies with 39 806 fetuses. The pooled sensitivity, specificity, PLR, NLR were 0.874, 0.999, 689.84, and 0.161, respectively. The DOR and AUC were 6651.3 and 0.9084, respectively.The overall detection rate was 0.874, which indicated high value of first trimester ultrasound in diagnosing CPs.