Zhu Xun, Han Wei, Xue Wenjie, Zou Yuxia, Xie Cuiwei, Du Jiangbo, Jin Guangfu
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, the Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Personalized Medicine, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 211166, China.
Xuzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Xuzhou 221003, China.
Sci Rep. 2016 Feb 26;6:22243. doi: 10.1038/srep22243.
Telomeres are crucial in the maintenance of chromosome integrity and genomic stability. A series of epidemiological studies have examined the association between telomere length and the risk of cancers, but the findings remain conflicting. We performed literature review and meta-analysis to demonstrate the relationship between telomere length and cancer risk. A total of 23,379 cases and 68,792 controls from 51 publications with 62 population studies were included in this meta-analysis to assess the association between overall cancer or cancer-specific risk and telomere length. General association and dose-response relationship were evaluated based on two and three groups, respectively. The estimates of association were evaluated with odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals by the random-effects or fixed-effects model based on heterogeneity test. We observed a non-significant association between short telomeres and overall risk of cancer. Convincing evidence was observed for the association of short telomeres with an increased risk of gastrointestinal tumor and head and neck cancer. Significant dose-response associations were also observed for gastrointestinal tumor and head and neck cancer. Our findings indicate that telomeres may play diverse roles in different cancers, and short telomeres may be risk factors for the tumors of digestive system.
端粒在维持染色体完整性和基因组稳定性方面至关重要。一系列流行病学研究探讨了端粒长度与癌症风险之间的关联，但研究结果仍存在矛盾。我们进行了文献综述和荟萃分析，以阐明端粒长度与癌症风险之间的关系。本荟萃分析纳入了来自51篇出版物中62项人群研究的总共23379例病例和68792例对照，以评估总体癌症或特定癌症风险与端粒长度之间的关联。分别基于两组和三组评估一般关联和剂量反应关系。基于异质性检验，采用随机效应或固定效应模型，通过比值比和95%置信区间评估关联估计值。我们观察到短端粒与总体癌症风险之间无显著关联。有确凿证据表明短端粒与胃肠道肿瘤和头颈癌风险增加有关。在胃肠道肿瘤和头颈癌中也观察到显著的剂量反应关联。我们的研究结果表明，端粒可能在不同癌症中发挥不同作用，短端粒可能是消化系统肿瘤的危险因素。
