Risk of colorectal neoplasm in patients with acromegaly: A meta-analysis

Table 1 The main characteristics of studies selected for meta-analysis

Ref.	1st author, year, country	Acromegaly patients		Control subjects		Type of the study	Control group composition
		n (M/F)	Mean age (range or SD yr)	n (M/F)	Mean age (range or SD, yr)
31	Terzolo, 1994, Italy	31 (11/20)	52.2 (27-85)	236 (127/109)	50.1 (23-84)	Hospital based control study	Patients with rectal bright-red bleeding from hemorrhoids
32	Vasen, 1994, Germany and Holland	49 (30/19)	54 (30-75)	57 (28/29)	54 (34-72)	Hospital based control study	Patients with irritable bowel syndrome
33	Delhougne, 1995, Belgium and France	103 (49/54)	5 (12, SD)	138 (55/83)	53 (15, SD)	Hospital based control study	Patients with irritable bowel syndrome
34	Colao, 1997, Italy	50 (25/25)	20-70	318 (Sex matched)1	Age matched1	Hospital based control study	Patients with irritable bowel syndrome
35	Martino, 2004, Italy	75 (33/42)	54 (11, SD)	75 (33/42)	55 (10, SD)	Hospital based control study	Patients with irritable bowel syndrome
36	Bhansali, 2004, India	60 (35/25)	37.4 (13.2, SD)	160 (88/72)	38.2 (14, SD)	Hospital based control study	Patients with irritable bowel syndrome
37	Matano, 2005, Japan	19 (11/8)	46.7 (16.3, SD)	76 (44/32)	47.3 (16.5, SD)	Hospital based control study	Randomly selected from subjects referred for colonoscopy
38	Terzolo, 2005, Italy	235 (115/120)	49.1 (12.6, SD)	233 (156/77)	50.8 (12, SD)	Hospital based control study	Consecutive patients with nonspecific abdominal symptoms
39	Bogazzi, 2006, Italy	79 (33/46)	55.0 (11.1, SD)	280 (166/114)	50.9 (10.8, SD)	Hospital based control study	Consecutive donors for kidney or liver transplantation
	Total	701		1573

¹Paper did not provide detailed data on patients mean age, control subjects, sex distribution and control subjects age.

Table 2 Heterogeneity and publication bias results of meta-analyzed studies, concerning the three types of colonic lesion examined, i.e. colon adenomas, hyperplastic polyps and colon cancer

Type of colonic lesion	Heterogeneity					Publication bias
	Number of studies	Q-value	df (Q)	I2	P value	Kendall’s tau	P value (two-tailed)
Adenomatous polyps	8	7.584	7	7.700	0.371	0.143	0.711
Hyperplastic polyps	7	7.447	6	19.433	0.281	0.143	0.764
Cancer	3	1.068	2	0.000	0.586	-0.333	1.000