Background:
The levels of ghrelin and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-¦Á) 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-¦Á in children with (CHD).
Methods:
Chinese and English scientific literature databases were searched to retrieve published studies relevant to ghrelin, TNF-¦Á 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.
Results:
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-¦Á in CCHD or ACHD children were significantly higher than those in healthy controls.
Conclusion:
Our meta-analysis results showed that serum levels of ghrelin and TNF-¦Á are elevated in children with CHD, and could be used as effective biologic markers in early diagnosis of CHD.
Key words: acyanotic; congenital heart disease; cyanotic; ghrelin; meta-analysis; TNF-¦Á
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