Parity and pancreatic cancer risk: evidence from a meta-analysis of twenty epidemiologic studies

Multiple studies have hypothesized parity is associated with pancreatic cancer risk but obtained conflicting results. We conducted a meta-analysis (including a dose-response approach) of current available epidemiologic studies to investigate the association between parity and risk of pancreatic cancer. Ten cohort studies and ten case-control studies including 8205 cases were eligible for inclusion. The combined RR (relative risk) of pancreatic cancer for the parous vs. nulliparous was 0.91 (95% CI, confidence interval = 0.85-0.97, I(2) = 39.0%, P(h) = 0.01). We observed an inverse association between giving birth to two children pancreatic cancer risk with RR of 0.86 (95% CI = 0.80-0.93, I(2) = 8.7%, P(h) = 0.36). And no evidence supported there was non-linear (P = 0.33) or linear relationship (P = 0.14) between number of parity and risk of pancreatic cancer. Findings from this meta-analysis indicate that giving birth to two children has the lowest pancreatic cancer risk, mechanism of this protective effect needs further investigation.