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Meta-Analysis
. 2016 Apr 22;11(4):e0150586.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0150586. eCollection 2016.

Inflammatory Markers and the Risk of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Bin Su  1   2 , Tiansheng Liu  3 , Haojun Fan  4 , Feng Chen  4 , Hui Ding  4 , Zhouwei Wu  4 , Hongwu Wang  2 , Shike Hou  4
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Inflammatory Markers and the Risk of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Bin Su et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Systemic inflammatory factors are inconsistently associated with the pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to summarize the evidence supporting the association between systemic inflammation and the risk of COPD. Pertinent studies were retrieved from PubMed, EmBase, and the Cochrane Library until April 2015. A random-effects model was used to process the data, and the analysis was further stratified by factors affecting these associations. Sensitivity analyses for publication bias were performed. We included 24 observational studies reporting data on 10,677 COPD patients and 28,660 controls. Overall, we noted that COPD was associated with elevated serum CRP (SMD: 1.21; 95%CI: 0.92-1.50; P < 0.001), leukocytes (SMD: 1.07; 95%: 0.25-1.88; P = 0.010), IL-6 (SMD: 0.90; 95%CI: 0.48-1.31; P < 0.001), IL-8 (SMD: 2.34; 95%CI: 0.69-4.00; P = 0.006), and fibrinogen levels (SMD: 0.87; 95%CI: 0.44-1.31; P < 0.001) when compared with control. However, COPD was not significantly associated with TNF-α levels when compared with control (SMD: 0.60; 95%CI: -0.46 to 1.67; P = 0.266). Our findings suggested that COPD was associated with elevated serum CRP, leukocytes, IL-6, IL-8, and fibrinogen, without any significant relationship with TNF-α.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Flow diagram outlining the literature search strategy and study selection process.
Fig 2
Fig 2. COPD associated with CRP (A) and leukocyte levels (B).
Fig 3
Fig 3. COPD associated with IL-6 (A) and IL-8 levels (B).
Fig 4
Fig 4. COPD associated with TNF-α (A) and fibrinogen levels (B).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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