A META analysis of association between breastfeeding and risk for infant hepatitis C virus infection

    LI Jingª²Mei1, YANG Jiª²Qing1, SHAO Zhongª²Jun2, LI Jingª²Hua3

    1Department of Physics, School of Biomedical Engineering, 2Department of Epidemiology, Scholl of Preventive Medicine, 3Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi¬ðan 710033, China

    ¡¾Abstract¡¿ AIM: To investigate the association between breastfeeding and infant hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. METHODS: China biological medicine database (CBMD) Founder Database, and Medline citations were surveyed to obtain literatures eligible for METAª²analysis. Criteria for enrollment of published literatures for META analysis was based on the principles by Abdolmaleky HM¬ðs standard[1]. Odd ratios(OR) were calculated and summarized by fixed effect model or random effect model. The heterogeneity of OR was assessed using a ¦Ö2 test. The association was evaluated using the OR values. All data were calculated automatically with REVMAN 4.2 software. RESULTS: By searching in Medline and CBMD, 120 articles were enrolled for further identification. Thirtyª²seven reviews on this field were excluded. Abstracts of remaining articles were carefully read, and finally 6 articles met the enrollment standards. Results from META analysis suggested that there was not a significant association of breastfeeding with infant HCV infection with OR being 0.60 (95%CI: 0.22-1.60). CONCLUSION: Breastfeeding did not increase the risk for infant to acquire the infection of HCV. ......