Associations between the Serum Zinc Levels and Digestive Tract Tumors:A Meta-Analysis

摘要

Background The incidence and mortality rates of digestive tract tumors are among the top ten worldwide.Notably,studies have shown that zinc may be significantly related to digestive tract tumors.This meta analysis was conducted to explore whether the serum zinc level of patients is associated with gastrointestinal cancer.Methods We systematically searched PUBMED,the Cochrane Library,the Web of Science and EMBASE from their start dates up to October 2022 for studies on the association between the serum zinc concentration and digestive tract tumors.The I^(2)statistic was used to assess the heterogeneity.A sensitivity analysis,subgroup analysis and meta-regression analysis were also used to analyze heterogeneity.Moreover,Begg’s and Egger’s tests were adopted to assess potential publication bias.Results In total,we identified 24 eligible studies with 1,499 total participants with digestive tract tumors and 6,039 participants without tumors.The average serum zinc concentration in patients with digestive tract tumors was lower than that in the control group(SMD=-0.98,95%CI:-1.29~-0.66,I^(2):94.1%,P<0.001).Specifically,the serum zinc concentration of patients with esophageal cancer(SMD=-2.08,95%CI:-2.89~-1.26,I^(2):92.9%,P<0.001),gastric cancer(SMD=-0.74,95%CI:-1.16~-0.33,I^(2):92.1%,P<0.001),and colorectal cancer(SMD=-0.85,95%CI:-1.51~-0.19,I^(2):95.9%P<0.05)were significantly different from the controls.Conclusion Our review showed that the serum zinc concentration in patients with digestive tract tumors was lower than that in patients without tumors,and further studies are needed to explore how zinc affects the occurrence and development of digestive tract tumors.