Breast cancer populations may have an increased prevalence of thyroglobulin antibody and thyroid peroxidase antibody: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Purpose Thyroid autoimmunity might be in relation to other autoimmune endocrine disease or non-endocrine disorders and there are innate and adaptive immune cells in breast cancer. Because autoimmune factors are common characteristics of both thyroid autoimmunity and breast cancer, these two types of diseases may occur concurrently in certain patients. The chief goal of this meta-analysis is to perform a combined analysis of the raw data from all included studies, and thereby obtain a reliable conclusion concerning whether TgAb or TPOAb positivity and breast cancer are indeed correlated. Methods To determine whether a correlation exists between TgAb or TPOAb positivity and breast cancer, this study performed a review of the literature that began by searching for articles in Chinese or English from the Medline, Embase, Web of Science core, Wanfang, Weipu and SinoMed databases, published during the time span extending from January 1980 to December 2017. On the basis of these raw data, we calculated odds ratio (OR) values, 95% confidence interval (CI) values, and P values. Results A total of 11 studies were included in this study. By combining the raw data from the retrieved studies, we were able to perform a meta-analysis. The results of this meta-analysis support the hypothesis that patients with breast cancer have a higher TgAb or TPOAb positive rate than the non-breast disease control group (TgAb: OR = 2.71, 95% CI = 1.81–4.05, P < 0.001; TPOAb: OR = 2.86, 95% CI = 2.17–3.77, P < 0.001, respectively). Testing for publication bias indicated that no significant publication bias was present in this meta-analysis, and sensitivity analysis indicated that the results of analysis were stable and reliable. Conclusions The results of this meta-analysis suggest strongly that, the TgAb or TPOAb positive rate among patients with breast cancer should be higher than among the non-breast disease control group.