Published online Mar 7, 2011. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v17.i9.1204
Revised: December 16, 2010
Accepted: December 23, 2010
Published online: March 7, 2011
AIM: To quantitatively assess the relationship between coffee consumption and incidence of pancreatic cancer in a meta-analysis of cohort studies.
METHODS: We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, Science Citation Index Expanded and bibliographies of retrieved articles. Studies were included if they reported relative risks (RRs) and corresponding 95% CIs of pancreatic cancer with respect to frequency of coffee intake. We performed random-effects meta-analyses and meta-regressions of study-specific incremental estimates to determine the risk of pancreatic cancer associated with a 1 cup/d increment in coffee consumption.
RESULTS: Fourteen studies met the inclusion criteria, which included 671 080 individuals (1496 cancer events) with an average follow-up of 14.9 years. Compared with individuals who did not drink or seldom drank coffee per day, the pooled RR of pancreatic cancer was 0.82 (95% CI: 0.69-0.95) for regular coffee drinkers, 0.86 (0.76-0.96) for low to moderate coffee drinkers, and 0.68 (0.51-0.84) for high drinkers. In subgroup analyses, we noted that, coffee drinking was associated with a reduced risk of pancreatic cancer in men, while this association was not seen in women. These associations were also similar in studies from North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region.
CONCLUSION: Findings from this meta-analysis suggest that there is an inverse relationship between coffee drinking and risk of pancreatic cancer.