Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2010 Nov 20;29(26):2679-87.
doi: 10.1002/sim.4041.

Random-effects meta-regression models for studying nonlinear dose-response relationship, with an application to alcohol and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Matteo Rota  1 , Rino Bellocco, Lorenza Scotti, Irene Tramacere, Mazda Jenab, Giovanni Corrao, Carlo La Vecchia, Paolo Boffetta, Vincenzo Bagnardi
Affiliations

Random-effects meta-regression models for studying nonlinear dose-response relationship, with an application to alcohol and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Matteo Rota et al. Stat Med. .

Abstract

A fundamental challenge in meta-analyses of published epidemiological dose-response data is the estimate of the function describing how the risk of disease varies across different levels of a given exposure. Issues in trend estimate include within studies variability, between studies heterogeneity, and nonlinear trend components. We present a method, based on a two-step process, that addresses simultaneously these issues. First, two-term fractional polynomial models are fitted within each study included in the meta-analysis, taking into account the correlation between the reported estimates for different exposure levels. Second, the pooled dose-response relationship is estimated considering the between studies heterogeneity, using a bivariate random-effects model. This method is illustrated by a meta-analysis aimed to estimate the shape of the dose-response curve between alcohol consumption and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Overall, 14 case-control studies and one cohort study, including 3000 cases of esophageal SCC, were included. The meta-analysis provided evidence that ethanol intake was related to esophageal SCC risk in a nonlinear fashion. High levels of alcohol consumption resulted in a substantial risk of esophageal SCC as compared to nondrinkers. However, a statistically significant excess risk for moderate and intermediate doses of alcohol was also observed, with no evidence of a threshold effect.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

LinkOut - more resources

  NODES
Association 2
twitter 2