Systematic review and meta-analysis of vesical imaging-reporting and data system (Vi-rads) inter-observer reliability: an added value for muscle invasive bladder cancer detection

The Vesical Imaging-Reporting and Data System (VI-RADS) has been introduced to provide preoperative bladder cancer staging and has proved to be reliable in assessing the presence of muscle invasion in the pre-TURBT (trans-urethral resection of bladder tumor). We aimed to assess through a systematic review and meta-analysis the inter-reader variability of VI-RADS criteria for discriminating non-muscle vs. muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC, MIBC). PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane, and Embase were searched up until 30 July 2020. The Quality Appraisal of Diagnostic Reliability (QAREL) checklist was utilized to assess the quality of included studies and a pooled measure of inter-rater reliability (Cohen’s Kappa [κ] and/or Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs)) was calculated. Further sensitivity analysis, subgroup analysis, and meta-regression were conducted to investigate the contribution of moderators to heterogeneity. In total, eight studies between 2018 and 2020, which evaluated a total of 1016 patients via 21 interpreting genitourinary (GU) radiologists, met inclusion criteria and were critically examined. No study was considered to be significantly flawed with publication bias. The pooled weighted mean κ estimate was 0.83 (95%CI: 0.78–0.88). Heterogeneity was present among the studies (Q = 185.92, d.f. = 7, p < 0.001; I2 = 92.7%). Meta-regression analyses showed that the relative % of MIBC diagnosis and cumulative reader’s experience to influence the estimated outcome (Coeff: 0.019, SE: 0.007; p= 0.003 and 0.036, SE: 0.009; p = 0.001). In the present study, we confirm excellent pooled inter-reader agreement of VI-RADS to discriminate NMIBC from MIBC underlying the importance that standardization and reproducibility of VI-RADS may confer to multiparametric magnetic resonance (mpMRI) for preoperative BCa staging.