Telomere length in multiple cancer: insight into recurrence risk from a meta‐analysis

Abstract Background Several studies have revealed the relationships between telomere length and the risk and mortality of numerous cancers. This meta‐analysis aims to insightfully clarify the potential relationship between telomere length and the recurrence of multiple cancers. Methods PubMed database was used to search and identify interrelated citations. These reports investigated the relationship between telomere length and various cancer recurrences. Meta‐analysis pooled data from studies that reported risk ratio (RR) of 95 (CI = 95%) confidence intervals and/or P ‐values. The cancer recurrence was investigated from an overall standpoint to the multiple levels of subtypes of cancers. Results The meta‐analysis involved 5907 recurrent multiple cancer patients from 13 cohort studies. Compared to these cancer recurrence cases and the telomere length differences, there was no significant correlation between telomere length and cancer recurrence risk (short telomeres vs long telomeres; RR = 0.93, 95% CI: 0.72–1.20, P = 0.59). Additionally, a negative association was observed between telomere length and cancer recurrence in gastrointestinal cancer and a positive association in head and neck cancer, while telomere length had little effect on the recurrence of hematological malignancies and genitourinary cancer in this analysis. Conclusion There was no significant relationship between recurrence and telomere length in 5907 cases in 13 studies. However, there was a correlation between specific tumors. These results suggested that telomere length as a recurrence marker or telomere length to determine the possibility of recurrence must be evaluated on the specific type of cancer.