Maternal blood leptin concentration in small for gestational age: a meta-analysis

Monitoring leptin concentration in maternal blood would be useful for earlier identification of mothers at risk of delivering small for gestational age (SGA) neonates. This study was performed to examine whether maternal blood leptin concentrations are different between SGA neonates and healthy controls. Meta-analysis was performed to summarize the data of all English-language studies providing the numbers of SGA neonates, the numbers of healthy controls, and the means and standard deviations of maternal blood leptin concentrations in these two groups. The studies were collected by searching ten databases including PubMed (MEDLINE) and investigating the PubMed Related Citations and bibliographic references. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale was used to assess study quality. Publication bias was assessed using Egger's test. The primary outcome of this study was the standardized mean difference (SMD) in maternal blood leptin concentration between SGA neonates and healthy controls. Thirty-two overall good-quality studies involving 1734 women and their neonates were extracted from 17 articles. Synthetic evidence did not indicate statistically significant SMD in maternal blood leptin concentration between SGA neonates and healthy controls (P = 0.172). Egger's test showed no publication bias (P = 0.309).Conclusion: Maternal blood leptin concentration is not significantly different between SGA neonates and healthy controls. What is Known: • Monitoring leptin concentration in maternal blood would be useful for earlier identification of mothers at risk of delivering small for gestational age (SGA) neonates. What is New: • The results of this meta-analysis including 1734 women and their neonates in 32 overall good-quality studies showed that maternal blood leptin concentration is not significantly different between SGA neonates and healthy controls.