Homocysteine and Digestive Tract Cancer Risk: A Dose-Response Meta-Analysis

Homocysteine, a key component in one-carbon metabolism, is of great importance in remethylation. Many epidemiologic studies have assessed the association between homocysteine and risk of digestive tract cancer, but the results are inconsistent.

The objective of our meta-analysis is to assess the association between homocysteine and digestive tract cancer risk.

Comprehensive searches were performed on the PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, and Web of Science databases up to September 25, 2018, to identify relevant studies. Thirteen studies were included in the meta-analysis. Odds ratios (ORs) and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were used to estimate the strength of the relationship between homocysteine and the risk of digestive tract cancer.

The pooled OR of digestive tract cancer risk for patients with the highest categories of blood homocysteine levels versus the lowest categories was 1.27 (95% CI, 1.15, 1.39) with no significant heterogeneity observed (P = 0.798, I = 0.0%). Moreover, the dose-response analysis revealed that each 5μmol/L increase in homocysteine increased the incidence of digestive tract cancer by 7%.

Generally, our results indicated that elevated homocysteine was associated with higher risk of digestive tract cancer. That is, homocysteine concentration may be a potential biomarker for occurrence of digestive tract cancer.