Abstract
Resistin levels have been reported to be abnormal in obesity-related cancer patients with epidemiological studies yielding inconsistent results. Therefore, a meta-analysis was performed to assess the association between blood resistin levels and obesity-related cancer risk. A total of 13 studies were included for pooling ORs analysis. High resistin levels were found in cancer patients (OR= 1.20, 95% CI= 1.10-1.30). After excluding one study primarily contributing to between-study heterogeneity, the association between resistin levels and cancer risk was still significant (OR=1.18, 95% CI = 1.09-1.28). Stratification analysis found resistin levels were not associated with cancer risk in prospective studies. Meta-regression analysis identified factors such as geographic area, detection assay, or study design as confounders to between-study variance. The result of 18 studies of pooling measures on SMD analysis was that high resistin levels were associated with increased cancer risk (SMD = 0.94, 95% CI = 0.63-1.25), but not in the pooling SMD analysis of prospective studies. Except for the studies identified as major contributors to heterogeneity by Galbraith plot, resistin levels were still higher in cancer patients (SMD = 0.75, 95% CI = 0.63-0.87) in retrospective studies. Meta-regression analysis found factors, such as geographic area, BMI-match, size, and quality score, could account for 66.7% between-study variance in pooling SMD analysis of retrospective studies. Publication bias was not found in pooling ORs analysis. Our findings indicated high resistin levels were associated with increased obesity-related cancer risk. However, it may not be a predictor.
Highlights
Obesity and diabetes are considered as important risk factors of cancers
We identified 42 potentially relevant papers concerning resistin in relation to cancer risk. 9 papers were excluded because circulating resistin levels were not measured in serum or plasma of the healthy controls or obesity-related cancers. 12 papers were excluded because that they did not provide sufficient information
A meta-analysis was conducted by pooling both odds ratios (ORs) and standardized mean difference (SMD)
Summary
Obesity and diabetes are considered as important risk factors of cancers. Resistin was first identified by a screening of adipocyte products that were decreased by rosiglitazone in mice. It was considered as the potential link between obesity and diabetes [4]. Resistin expression in prostate www.impactjournals.com/oncotarget epithelial cells was found to be higher in patients with prostate cancer, compared with that in those with benign prostate hyperplasia [5]. Many studies showed resistin levels were similar, even lower in cancer patients compare with normal controls. The reasons underlying these heterogeneous findings need to be investigated
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