title: Patients with chronically diseased livers have lower incidence of colorectal liver metastases: a meta-analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  70 years ago, it was put forward that the diseased liver was not a favorable soil for metastatic tumor cells. In addition, a few studies have demonstrated that rare occurrence of colorectal liver metastases among patients with fatty liver, cirrhosis or chronic hepatitis B and C virus infection. We performed a meta-analysis to verify the association between the incidences of colorectal liver metastases with chronically diseased livers.
  
  
  METHODS
  Relevant studies were identified by a search of electronic database PubMed, Cochrane Library, OVID, Web of Science and CNKI (up to February 24, 2014). Pooled odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) was calculated using random- or fixed-effect models when appropriate. Meta-analysis and publication bias (Bgger's test) was evaluated with STATA 12.0.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 10,349 colorectal cancer patients from 10 studies were included. The meta-analysis result showed there was a significant difference in the incidences of colorectal liver metastases between patients with normal and chronically diseased livers (OR = 0.32; 95% CI 95%: 0.26-0.38, P = 0.000 fixed-effects model). The result of Begg's test (Pr>|z| = 0.089; P>0.05) revealed no publication bias.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results of this meta-analysis demonstrated that patients with chronically diseased livers had significantly lower incidences of colorectal liver metastases than those with normal livers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Colorectal Surgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.affiliation: Department of Colorectal Surgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Liao
authors.affiliation: Department of Colorectal Surgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Xian-qing
authors.initials: XQ
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Wei-yuan
authors.initials: WY
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: School of preclinical Medicine, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhuang
authors.affiliation: Department of Colorectal Surgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Sen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D002908:Chronic Disease; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000556:secondary*; D017594:Publication Bias