Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on Infertility and Thyroid Cancer Risk

Xianli Qiao published a systematic review and meta-analysis on figshare in May 2026. The study synthesizes observational evidence from nine studies comprising 4,563,090 participants to quantify the association between infertility and thyroid cancer risk. The pooled analysis found a relative risk of 1.37, with stratified analyses suggesting a stronger association among men.

Use Cases

• Validate epidemiological hypotheses about infertility as a cancer risk factor based on the pooled risk estimates.
• Compare sex-stratified risk associations based on the reported RR for men (1.53) and women (1.31).
• Assess methodological robustness in meta-analyses based on the described sensitivity analyses and heterogeneity assessment (I² = 81.9%).
• Guide future research design based on the conclusion that further well-designed studies are needed.

Strengths

• Includes a substantial pooled sample size of 4,563,090 participants from nine studies.
• Provides specific quantitative results, including a pooled relative risk (RR 1.37) and confidence intervals.
• Conducted prespecified subgroup analyses by sex and study design, and performed sensitivity analyses.

Limitations

• The dataset is a PDF document (239.7 KB); the underlying tabular data or study-level data are not provided.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred from the text.
• The description notes substantial heterogeneity across studies (I² = 81.9%), indicating variability in the underlying evidence.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies from PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus.

Time Range

Studies searched from inception to February 10, 2026.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-18 04:10:20; freshness should be verified.