Meta-Analysis
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 28, 2021; 27(20): 2643-2656
Published online May 28, 2021. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i20.2643
Association between oral contraceptive use and pancreatic cancer risk: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Milena Ilic, Biljana Milicic, Irena Ilic
Milena Ilic, Department of Epidemiology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Kragujevac, Kragujevac 34000, Serbia
Biljana Milicic, Department of Medical Statistics and Informatics, Faculty of Dental Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade 11000, Serbia
Irena Ilic, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade 11000, Serbia
Author contributions: All authors equally contributed to this paper with conception and design of the study, literature review and analysis, drafting and critical revision and editing, and final approval of the final version.
Supported by Ministry of Education, Science and Technological development, Republic of Serbia, 2011–2020, No. 175042.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Milena Ilic, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Kragujevac, S. Markovica 69, Kragujevac 34000, Serbia. drmilenailic@yahoo.com
Received: February 6, 2021
Peer-review started: February 6, 2021
First decision: February 27, 2021
Revised: March 13, 2021
Accepted: April 23, 2021
Article in press: April 23, 2021
Published online: May 28, 2021
Core Tip

Core Tip: Although the understanding of the etiology of pancreatic cancer has improved dramatically over the past decades, the link between pancreatic cancer risk and oral contraceptive (OC) use is still insufficiently known. This meta-analysis showed a significant association between OC use and pancreatic cancer risk (overall relative risk = 0.85; 95% confidence interval = 0.73-0.98). A better understanding of the risks of pancreatic cancer occurrence in women who use OC may be relevant for pancreatic cancer prevention strategy.