Adherence to Cancer Prevention Guidelines and Endometrial Cancer Risk: Evidence from a Systematic Review and Dose-Response Meta-analysis of Prospective Studies

PURPOSE: The evidence of adherence to cancer prevention guidelines and endometrial cancer (EC) risk has been limited and controversial. This study summarizes and quantifies the relationship between adherence to cancer prevention guidelines and EC risk. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The online databases PubMed, Web of Science, and EMBASE were searched for relevant publications up to June 2, 2020. This study had been registered at PROSPERO. The registration number is CRD42020149966. Study quality evaluation was performed based on the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. The I(2) statistic was used to estimate heterogeneity among studies. Egger’s and Begg’s tests assessed potential publication bias. Summary hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the relationship between adherence to cancer prevention guidelines score was assigned to participants by summarizing individual scores for each lifestyle-related factor. The scores ranged from least healthy (0) to most healthy (20) and the EC risk was calculated using a random-effects model. RESULTS: Five prospective studies (four cohort studies and one case-cohort study) consisted of 4,470 EC cases, where 597,047 participants were included. Four studies had a low bias risk and one study had a high bias risk. Summary EC HR for the highest vs. lowest score of adherence to cancer prevention guidelines was 0.54 (95% CI, 0.40 to 0.73) and had a high heterogeneity (I(2)=86.1%). For the dose-response analysis, an increment of 1 significantly reduced the risk of EC by 6%. No significant publication bias was detected. CONCLUSION: This study suggested that adherence to cancer prevention guidelines was negatively related to EC risk.