Diagnosis Accuracy of Raman Spectroscopy in the Identification of Pathogenic Bacteria

As an emerging technology, Raman spectroscopy (RS) has been used to identify pathogenic bacteria with excellent performance. The aim of this study was to verify the diagnosis accuracy of RS in identification of pathogenic bacteria. This meta-analysis systematically evaluated the accuracy of RS for identification of pathogenic bacteria. We searched the electronic databases of PubMed and Web of Science to obtain relevant articles; STATA 15.1 was used to analyze all sensitivities, specificies, and their 95% confidence interval (CI). The summary receiver operating characteristic curves (SROC) and area under the curve (AUC) were used to display more performance of RS. Nineteen articles were included according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of RS for the identification of pathogenic bacteria were 0.94 (95% CI, 0.89-0.96) and 0.99 (95% CI, 0.97-0.99). The diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) was 1209 (95% CI, 367-3980), and AUC of SROC was 0.99 (95% CI, 0.98-1.00). For gram-positive bacteria, the sensitivity and specificity of different species ranged from 0.00 to 1.00 and 0.96 to 1.00, with a pooled sensitivity and specificity of 0.96 (95% CI, 0.90-0.98) and 0.99 (95% CI, 0.98-1.00). For gram-negative bacteria, the sensitivity and specificity of different species ranged from 0.30 to 1.00 and 0.92 to 1.00, with a pooled sensitivity and specificity of 0.92 (95% CI, 0.76-0.98) and 0.99 (95% CI, 0.98-1.00). For acid-fast bacteria, the sensitivity and specificity of different species ranged from 0.83 to 1.00 and 0.96 to 1.00, with a pooled sensitivity and specificity of 0.96 (95% CI, 0.84-0.99) and 1.00 (95% CI, 0.96-1.00). RS provides a new method for pathogenic bacteria identification and demonstrates high sensitivity and specificity for most included species.