19 All analyses were performed with STATA 11.0 software. A total of 3510 publications were identified in the initial search, and 3455 records were excluded based on screening of titles or abstracts

(Fig. 1). Full text articles were retrieved only for 55 publications and assessed for eligibility. Of these 55 publications, 39 were excluded (26 duplicate publications, one review, four publications containing overlapping data, and eight publications in which SIR and 95% CI could not be calculated based on data provided). Overall, we identified and included 16 publications involving 17 studies that met the inclusion criteria in the systematic review. Notably, there was one publication that involved two cohort studies, one for Spanish patients and the other for Italian patients.20 The 17 studies were published between 1984 and 2011 (Table 1) and involved a total of 16,368 PBC patients. Study characteristics, Selleck Napabucasin demographic information,

and adjustment or restriction variables for the included studies are listed in Table 1. Of these 17 studies, four22, 23, 25, 27 were population-based, while the others were hospital-based. Nine studies involving 6766 patients were conducted for relative risk of overall malignancies,11, 12, 21-27 12 involving 13,576 patients for hepatocellular carcinoma,12, 13, 20-25, 28-30 nine involving 5945 patients for breast cancer,1, 11, 12, 21, 23-27 five involving 3221 patients for kidney cancer,1, Forskolin concentration 12, 21, 25, 26 and five involving 8466 patients for colon cancer.11-13, 21, 26 The numbers for other cancers are listed in Table 3. Of 13 studies using SIR as the measurement of relative risk, three presented SIRs23, 25, 27 and nine did not,11, 20, 24, 26, 28-31 necessitating calculation of the SIRs for the combined population, and one provided PIR rather than SIR.1 Furthermore, this study provided PIR for various site-specific malignancies (e.g., HCC, breast cancer, skin melanoma, colorectal cancer, kidney cancer), but not for overall malignancy. Thus, the PIRs were used as the measurement of relative risk for the combined population for learn more various site-specific

malignancies, rather than overall malignancy. In addition, there were, at least partly, overlapping data for HCC risk between this study and another study by Cavazza et al.20 Therefore, the data for HCC risk, but not other site-specific malignancy risks, from the study by Floreani et al.1 were excluded. All of the studies included were cohort studies. On the basis of the NOS for the cohort studies, the majority of studies included were deemed of high quality (13 studies with score of 7 or more). The quality of three studies was deemed moderate (score of 4-6). Only one study was of low quality (score of 3) (Supporting File 1). As shown in Table 3, the pooled RR with 95% CI was 1.55 (95% CI, 1.28-1.83) in a random-effect model for PBC patients compared with general population. Due to moderate heterogeneity (I2 = 43.6%, P = 0.