Abstract
Excess body weight has been identified as a risk factor for various cancer types.
Since the publication of two meta-analyses indicating that body mass index (BMI) is
positively associated with the risk of multiple myeloma, the evidence from prospective
cohort studies on this issue has largely accumulated. We therefore conducted a meta-analysis
to update and expand the previous results. We searched the PubMed and EMBASE databases
through 26 January 2011 and reviewed the reference lists of retrieved articles. Prospective
cohort studies were included if they reported relative risk (RR) estimates with 95%
confidence intervals (CIs) for the association between BMI and multiple myeloma incidence
or mortality. A random-effects model was used to combine study-specific results. A
total of 15 cohort studies on multiple myeloma incidence and five studies on multiple
myeloma mortality were included in the meta-analysis. Compared with subjects in the
normal weight category, the risk of multiple myeloma was statistically significantly
elevated among subjects categorised as overweight (RR, 1.12; 95% CI, 1.07–1.18) or
obese (RR, 1.21; 95% CI, 1.08–1.35). For multiple myeloma mortality, the corresponding
summary RR estimates were 1.15 (95% CI, 1.04–1.27) and 1.54 (95% CI, 1.35–1.76). Results
from this meta-analysis are in line with the conclusions of the previous meta-analyses,
and suggest that excess body weight is a risk factor for multiple myeloma.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 28, 2011
Accepted:
January 28,
2011
Received in revised form:
January 26,
2011
Received:
December 6,
2010
Footnotes
☆Grant support: Supported by research grants from the Swedish Cancer Foundation.
Identification
Copyright
© 2011 Elsevier Ltd. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
