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Background: The relationship between cancer with body mass index has been extensively reported. However, association between urinary cancers with these risk factors remains unclear, with existing reports showing conflicting findings. The current review, therefore, sought to clarify the latter association by assessing the methodological and reporting quality of existing systematic reviews on the subject. Methods: We will screen PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library databases for relevant literature and subjected the resulting articles to meta-analysis. We will adopt the AMSTAR and PRISMA checklists for assessing methodological, and reporting quality, respectively. The association between BMI and different urinary cancers will be estimated by computing the pooled relative risk (RR) and its 95% confidence interval (CI), which will be calculated from the adjusted RR, odds ratio, or hazard ratio, and 95% CI offered in the studies. Heterogeneity between studies will be assessed with the I statistic as a measure of the proportion of total variation in estimates that is due to heterogeneity, where I values of 25%, 50%, and 75% correspond to cut-off points for low, moderate, and high degrees of heterogeneity. The random effects model will be used as the pooling method when significant heterogeneity existed and the fixed effect model will be used when no heterogeneity was observed. Possible publication bias will be tested by Begg and Egger test. Conclusion: Our evidence synthesis will provide a new commentary on the current systematic review evidence for the association between BMI and the risk of different urinary cancers. PROSPERO registration number: CRD42019119459.

BACKGROUND Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that is related to the health of the human body and is an indispensable nutrient for human beings. Some studies indicated that type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) with diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) may be associated with vitamin D deficiency, but the current understanding of this point of view remains controversial. This study aimed to evaluate the correlation between serum 25-hydroxyl vitamin D (25 [OH] D) concentration and DPN in patients with T2DM by a meta-analysis, and to provide a reference for doctors. METHODS Relevant studies were selected from the PubMed, Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, VIP databases, and Wanfang Data Knowledge Service Platform databases dating from 2000 to December 2017. A total of 75 articles related to serum 25 (OH) D and DPN were selected from 2000 to December 2017. Based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the literature, a quality assessment was conducted using the Newcastle-Ottawa scale, and a meta-analysis was performed by RevMan5.3 statistical software. RESULTS Thirteen studies that involved a total of 2814 type 2 diabetic patients were finally included into the meta-analysis. Meta-analysis results, heterogeneity test showed that, P

Background: Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) is considered a novel method for diagnosing pancreatic cancer, but currently, there is no conclusive evidence of its accuracy. Using CEUS in discriminating between pancreatic carcinoma and other pancreatic lesions, we aimed to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of CEUS in predicting pancreatic tumours. Methods: Relevant studies were selected from the PubMed, Cochrane Library, Elsevier, CNKI, VIP, and WANFANG databases dating from January 2006 to May 2017. The following terms were used as keywords: “pancreatic cancer” OR “pancreatic carcinoma,” “contrast-enhanced ultrasonography” OR “contrast-enhanced ultrasound” OR “CEUS,” and “diagnosis.” The selection criteria are as follows: pancreatic carcinomas diagnosed by CEUS while the main reference standard was surgical pathology or biopsy (if it involved a clinical diagnosis, particular criteria emphasized); SonoVue or Levovist was the contrast agent; true positive, false positive, false negative, and true negative rates were obtained or calculated to construct the 2 × 2 contingency table; English or Chinese articles; at least 20 patients were enrolled in each group. The Quality Assessment for Studies of Diagnostic Accuracy was employed to evaluate the quality of articles. Pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, diagnostic odds ratio, summary receiver-operating characteristic curves, and the area under curve were evaluated to estimate the overall diagnostic efficiency. Pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio, and negative likelihood ratio with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated with fixed-effect models. Results: Eight of 184 records were eligible for a meta-analysis after independent scrutinization by 2 reviewers. The pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, and diagnostic odds ratios were 0.86 (95% CI 0.81–0.90), 0.75 (95% CI 0.68–0.82), 3.56 (95% CI 2.64–4.78), 0.19 (95% CI 0.13–0.27), and 22.260 (95% CI 8.980–55.177), respectively. The area under the SROC curve was 0.9088. Conclusion: CEUS has a satisfying pooled sensitivity and specificity for discriminating pancreatic cancer from other pancreatic lesions.

Endometriosis is a complex disease that affects a large number of women worldwide and may cause pain and infertility. To systematically review published studies evaluating the relationship between menstrual cycle length and risk of endometriosis. We searched the Cochrane Library, PubMed, Web of Science, and EMBASE in databases in July 2014 using the keywords “case–control studies,” “epidemiologic determinants,” “risk factors,” “menstrual cycle,” “menstrual length,” “menstrual character,” and “endometriosis.” We included case–control studies published in English that investigated cases of surgically confirmed endometriosis and examined the relationship between endometriosis risk and menstrual cycle. Eleven articles that met the inclusion criteria included data of 3392 women with endometriosis and 5006 controls. Fixed-effects and random-effects models were used for the evaluation. For the association of risk of endometriosis and menstrual cycle length shorter than or equal to 27 days (SEQ27) or length longer than or equal to 29 days (LEQ29), the odds ratio was 1.22 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.05–1.43) and 0.68 (95% CI: 0.48–0.96), respectively. In conclusion, this meta-analysis suggests that menstrual cycle length SEQ27 increase the risk of endometriosis and cycle length LEQ29 decrease the risk.