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Updated: Apr 11, 2026
Isolation and Culturing of Primary Murine Adipocytes from Lean and Obese Mice
Published on: January 24, 2025
Circulating adiponectin and risk of endometrial cancer
Qiaoli Zheng1, Haijian Wu2, Jiang Cao3
1Clinical Research Center, The Second Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, 88 Jiefang Road, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China; Department of Dermatology, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, 3 Qingchun Road East, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.
Background:
Adiponectin is an insulin-sensitizing hormone produced by adipocytes. It has been suggested to be involved in endometrial tumorigenesis. Published data have shown inconsistent results for the association between circulating adiponectin levels and endometrial cancer. In this study, we conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the predictive value of circulating adiponectin levels on the development of endometrial cancer.
Methods:
PubMed, Embase, ISI web of knowledge, and Cochrane databases were searched for all eligible studies, and the summary relative risk (SRR) was calculated. Additionally, we performed dose-response analysis with eight eligible studies.
Results:
A total of 1,955 cases and 3,458 controls from 12 studies were included. The SRR for the 'highest' vs 'lowest' adiponectin levels indicated high adiponectin level reduced the risk of endometrial cancer [SRR = 0.40, 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.33-0.66]. Results from the subgroup analyses were consistent with the overall analysis. The SRR for each 1 µg/ml increase of adiponectin indicated a 3% reduction in endometrial cancer risk (95% CI: 2%-4%), and a 14% reduction for each increase of 5 µg/ml (95% CI: 9%-19%). No evidence of publication bias was found.
Conclusions:
This meta-analysis demonstrates that low level of circulating adiponectin is a risk factor for endometrial cancer.
