A systematic review of the epidemiological literature on the risk of urological cancers in systemic lupus erythematosus

A grow body of studies has evaluated the risk of development of urological cancer in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) with inconclusive results. To clarify the association, a meta-analysis approach was performed to assess the published evidence on urological cancers and SLE. Relevant English electronic databases were systematic searched for published studies characterizing the risk of developing urological cancer as a result of SLE. Standardized incidence rate (SIR) with its 95 % confidence interval (CI) of each study was combined using a fixed-/random-effect model in STATA software. A total of 12 papers including 68366 SLE patients were suitable for meta-analysis. Of these, 9 reported the SIR for prostate cancer, 7 for bladder cancer and 6 for kidney cancer. Summary SIRs were 0.77 (95 % CI 0.69-0.87, P < 0.001); 1.75 (95 % CI 0.94-3.23, P = 0.075) and 2.29 (95 % CI 1.25-4.18, P = 0.007), respectively. Significant heterogeneity was noticed in subgroups of bladder and kidney cancer. No obvious publication bias was detected. Findings from this meta-analysis indicate that SLE is associated with a decreased risk of prostate cancer and an increased risk of kidney cancer.