Association of diabetes mellitus with non-Hodgkin lymphoma risk: a meta-analysis of cohort studies

ABSTRACT

Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is considered to be a risk factor in the prognosis of many types of cancer, but the effect of DM on the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) is still under dispute. We performed this study to examine the association between DM and subsequent NHL risk.

Methods: A systematically search had been performed in PubMed, EmBase, and the Cochrane Library to identify eligible studies from inception to September 2018.

Results: Thirteen cohort studies were included, with a total of 9024761 participants. The results showed that DM was associated with an increased risk of NHL (RR = 1.15, 95%CI: 1.02, 1.30, P = .03). Subgroup analyses suggested that DM was significantly associated with patients aged less than 60 years old (RR = 1.65, 95%CI: 1.31, 2.09, P < .0001), follow-up duration within 8 years (RR = 1.23, 95%CI: 1.02, 1.48, P = .03), and studies adjusted for body mass index (RR = 1.35, 95%CI: 1.01, 1.79, P = .04). The analyses within DM patients indicated that DM men were more likely to develop NHL than DM women (RR = 1.31, 95%CI: 1.04, 1.65, P = .02).

Conclusions: These results indicated that DM patients have significantly increased risk of NHL compared nondiabetics. Male DM patients were more likely to develop NHL compared with female. However, further large-scale studies are required to eliminate miscellaneous factors in all included studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Diabetes mellitus
• non-Hodgkin lymphoma
• risk
• review
• meta-analysis
• age
• follow-up duration
• body mass index

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by “215” high-level health technology talents training plan (No.2015-3-006).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.