Previously submitted to: Interactive Journal of Medical Research (no longer under consideration since Dec 11, 2023)
Date Submitted: Dec 5, 2022
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Risk factors for tuberculosis: An umbrella review of meta-analyses
ABSTRACT
Background:
Numerous studies have identified multiple risk factors for tuberculosis (TB). We conducted an umbrella review of meta-analyses to consolidate the available epidemiologic evidence and evaluate its credibility.
Objective:
The main objective of our study was to systematically consolidate the available risk factors of TB and thus provide a reference for future TB prevention and control.
Methods:
We searched PubMed, Web of Science and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews for meta-analyses on factors influencing TB published between database inception and October 17, 2021. The summary effect, 95% confidence interval (CI) and heterogeneity were obtained. A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews 2 (AMSTAR2) was applied to assess the methodological quality.
Results:
A total of 17 eligible articles were included in this umbrella review. A total of 24 risk factors, including lifestyle and hygiene, basic personal characteristics, nutrients, vaccinations and other disease factors, were identified. Among these, moderate-quality evidence suggested that indoor air pollution (relative risk [RR], 1.26; 95% CI: 1.08, 1.48), underweight (RR, 4.96; 95% CI: 4.87, 5.05), vitamin D deficiency (odds ratio [OR], 1.48; 95% CI: 1.04, 2.10) and diabetes (OR, 2.3; 95% CI: 2.0, 2.7) increase the risk of TB. Another 17 factors associated with increased risk and 2 factors associated with reduced risk with weak credibility were identified.
Conclusions:
The findings of our study can provide a reference for future TB prevention and control and for clinicians to make medical decisions. Nonetheless, large, multicenter, and multicountry prospective studies are warranted to confirm the results of this umbrella analysis. Clinical Trial: PROSPERO CRD42021255786; https://tinyurl.com/54d9pxy8
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.