Growth Hormone Replacement Therapy in Adult Growth Hormone Deficiency and Risk of Cancer: A Meta-Analysis

The growth hormone (GH) replacement therapy in adult growth hormone deficiency (AGHD) is now well developed, nevertheless, the safety of GH replacement, especially the incidence of cancer in these patients remains to be further clarified. To summarize the evidence on the safety of using GH in AGHD, we conduct this meta-analysis to assess the relationship between the risk of cancer and GH replacement therapy. Randomized controlled trials and cohort studies involved in GH therapy for AGHD were selected. Meta-analysis was performed and risk ratio (RR) was pooled with 95% confidence interval (CI) to investigate the relationship between GH replacement and the risk of cancer. The result indicated that there was no evidence to draw a conclusion that GH replacement therapy will increase the risk of cancer (P = 0.001, RR = 0.77, 95% CI [0.65, 0.90]). Meanwhile, according to the calculated analysis, the replacement therapy might even reduce the risk of cancer. Furthermore, subgroup analysis demonstrated that there was no correlation between replacement therapy of GH and the risk of cancer both in prospective and retrospective cohort design research, and in prospective group, the risk of cancer even decreased (P = 0.0002, RR = 0.71, 95%CI [0.59, 0.85]). In conclusion, our study corroborates evidence from previous studies showing that GH replacement therapy in AGHD patients would not increase the risk of cancer; instead, it might be even decrease cancer risk. The results suggested that GH replacement therapy in AGHD patients was safe.