Obesity and Kidney Cancer Risk in Men - a Meta-analysis (1992-2008)

Abstract

We conducted a quantitative summary analysis to evaluate the recent evidence of kidney cancer risk accordingto body mass index (BMI) among men. The studies included in this quantitative review were all cohort and casecontrolstudies, which provided information on kidney cancer risk associated with obesity/overweight, publishedbetween 1992 and 2008. The details of studies have been identified through searches on the MEDLINE database.We first estimated the risk associated with a unit increase in BMI (1 kg/m2) for individual studies using logitlinearmodel. After deriving the natural logarithm of the risk per unit of BMI for all studies, we calculated apooled estimate and corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) as a weighted average of the risk obtained inindividual studies, by giving a weight proportional to its precision. A total of 27 studies (13 cohort studies and 14case-control studies) that provided kidney cancer risk according to BMI in men were included in the presentanalysis. The strength of association was almost similar in most of the cohort studies [relative risk (RR) rangedfrom 1.04-1.06 per unit increase in BMI] and in one study RR was 1.08. There was no heterogeneity acrossstudies (p-value=0.164). The pooled risk was 1.05 (95% CI=1.04-1.06) per unit increase in BMI based on thecohort studies. The present analysis confirmed the evidence of kidney cancer risk with increased BMI in menand obesity may be responsible at least in part for the rising incidence rates.