title: A contemporary meta-analysis of the association of diabetes with abdominal aortic aneurysm.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Aim of the present study was to determine whether diabetes is independently and inversely associated with prevalence of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). We performed a meta-analysis of contemporary literature in which adjusted (but not unadjusted) relative risk estimates are available.
  
  
  METHODS
  MEDLINE and EMBASE were searched from January 1999 to April 2014 using Web-based search engines (PubMed and OVID). Studies considered for inclusion met the following criteria: the design was a prospective-cohort, population-screening, or case-control study; the study population was individuals with and without diabetes or AAA; and outcomes included adjusted (but not unadjusted) relative risks for prevalence/incidence of AAA in patients with diabetes versus subjects without diabetes. Study-specific adjusted relative risk estimate were combined using inverse variance-weighted average of logarithmic odds ratios (or hazard ratios) in the random-effects model.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of 324 potentially relevant articles screened initially, 13 eligible studies were identified and included. A pooled analysis of all the 13 studies demonstrated that diabetes was significantly associated with lower prevalence of AAA (odds ratio, 0.59; 95% confidence interval, 0.52 to 0.67; P<0.00001). When data from 6 prospective-cohort, 5 population-screening, and 2 case-control studies were separately pooled, diabetes was also significantly associated with lower prevalence of AAA (P for subgroup differences =0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Diabetes appears to be inversely associated with prevalence of AAA.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Shizuoka Medical Center, Shizuoka, Japan - kfgth963@ybb.ne.jp.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Takagi
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Umemoto
mesh_terms: D017544:Aortic Aneurysm, Abdominal / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D016017:Odds Ratio; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors