Breastfeeding and the Risk of Childhood Hodgkin Lymphoma: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Purpose: Numerous observational epidemiological studies have evaluated associations between breastfeedingand the risk of childhood Hodgkin lymphoma; however, the existing results are inconsistent. We thereforeconducted a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Methods: Medical literature was searched in the Pubmed andEmbase databases to identify all English-language relevant studies up to April 10, 2013. Reference lists werethereafter hand-searched for additional articles. Studies that reported relative risk ratios (RRs) or odds ratios(ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were included. This meta-analysis was conducted in accordancewith the guidelines for the meta-analysis of observational studies in epidemiology.
Results: We finally included10 case-control studies in our meta-analysis, involving 1,618 childhood Hodgkin lymphoma cases and 8,181controls. Overall, we did found a borderline significant association between breastfeeding and reduced riskof childhood Hodgkin lymphoma comparing ever breastfed children to never breastfed children (pooled OR=0.79; 95%CI, 0.58-1.08; P=0.13), with limited evidence for between-study heterogeneity (P =0.12, I2 = 35.70%).
Conclusion: There is limited evidence for an inverse association between breastfeeding and risk of childhoodHodgkin lymphoma.