The levels of ghrelin and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) are considered biological markers of congenital heart diseases (CHD). The present meta-analysis was conducted to investigate the clinical significance of serum levels of ghrelin and TNF-α in children with (CHD).

Chinese and English scientific literature databases were searched to retrieve published studies relevant to ghrelin, TNF-α and CHD. Manual search was additionally employed to identify other relevant studies from cross-references. The retrieved studies were screened on the basis of our stringent inclusion and exclusion criteria to select high quality case-control studies for meta-analysis.

We initially retrieved 108 published studies (20 in Chinese and 88 in English) from database searches. Finally, 6 case-control studies (5 in English and 1 in Chinese) were enrolled in our meta-analysis, and contained a total of 160 cyanotic congenital heart disease (CCHD) patients and 215 acyanotic congenital heart disease (ACHD) patients, along with 162 healthy controls. The results of meta-analysis showed that serum levels of ghrelin and TNF-α in CCHD or ACHD children were significantly higher than those in healthy controls.

Our meta-analysis results showed that serum levels of ghrelin and TNF-α are elevated in children with CHD, and could be used as effective biologic markers in early diagnosis of CHD.