Gestational diabetes mellitus and maternal breast cancer risk: a meta-analysis of the literature

Abstract

Objective: The association between gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and maternal breast cancer risk was controversial and inclusive. In this study, we aimed to examine the association between GDM and maternal breast cancer using meta-analysis method.

Methods: Researchers searched and reviewed the topic related articles comprehensively. For each eligible article, we extracted the effect size (odds ratio/relative risk or OR/RR) and its 95% confidence interval (CI). We used random effect models to combine the effect sizes. Subgroups analysis were used to examine whether the effects of GDM on breast cancer risk differed across GDM ascertainment methods, breast cancer ascertainment method, risk of bias, and country of study origin.

Results: Five case-control studies and six cohort studies which met the eligible criteria were included into analysis. Overall, we didn’t find significant associations between GDM and breast cancer among case-control studies (pooled OR = 0.85, 95%CI = 0.65, 1.10) and cohort studies pooled RR = 1.00, 95%CI = 0.80, 1.25). However, our subgroup analysis showed that GDM was a protective factor for breast cancer among the case-control studies in which breast cancer was ascertained via cancer registry system (OR = 0.73, 95%CI = 0.54, 1.00).

Conclusions: GDM during pregnancy is not associated with breast cancer in our study, suggesting that GDM mothers are not needed to be too anxious about their future breast cancer risk.

Keywords:

• Gestational diabetes mellitus
• breast cancer
• meta-analysis

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr. Zhongzheng Niu from Claremont Graduate University, now a doctoral student at University at Buffalo, State University of New York, for helping us search the full text articles.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no declarations of interest.