Fish intake and ovarian cancer risk: a meta-analysis of 15 case-control and cohort studies

Previous epidemiological studies have shown that fish consumption may modify the risk of ovarian cancer. However, these studies yielded controversial results. The present meta-analysis was undertaken to evaluate the relationship between fish intake and ovarian cancer risk.

A literature search was carried out using Pubmed, Embase, and Cochrane Library Central database for all relevant studies up to August 2013. We pooled the relative risks (RR) from individual studies using fixed-effect or random-effect model, and carried out heterogeneity and publication bias analyses.

A total of 15 (ten case-control, and five cohort) studies were included in the present meta-analysis, representing data for 889,033 female subjects and 6,087 ovarian cancer cases. We found that total fish intake was not significantly associated with the risk of ovarian cancer among cohort studies (RR = 1.04 95% CI [0.89, 1.22]) as well as case-control studies (RR = 0.90, 95% CI [0.73,1.12]). There was no evidence of publication bias as suggested by Begg's test (P = 0.55) and Egger's test(P = 0.29).

The present meta-analysis showed that total fish consumption was not significantly associated with the risk of ovarian cancer. Further analysis on different fish species and food preparation methods should be conducted in future studies.