Systematic review and meta-analysis of the ultrasound diagnosis of pelvic organ prolapse (MUDPOP)

We want to determine what the diagnostic criteria for pelvic organ prolapse (POP) should be for each pelvic compartment, establishing their diagnostic capability based on the current literature. This is a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies published until March 2024 that compared the diagnosis of POP between transperineal ultrasound and clinical POP-Q examination. The authors searched various databases including PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science, CINAHL, The Cochrane Library and ClinicalTrials.gov. The Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 (QUADAS-2) tool was used to assess study quality. Estimates of odds ratios, 95% confidence intervals and significance of sensitivity and specificity were obtained by aggregating all selected studies. All analyses were performed with R software. The search identified 2359 citations and after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 8 studies were finally included. All studies were considered to have low applicability concerns in terms of patient selection, index test, reference standard, flow and timing. The pooled sensitivity for ultrasound diagnosis of POP was 72.3% with a standard error of 3.1% (p