SynthesisBMC cancer2018
Sleep duration and the risk of cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis including dose-response relationship.
Synthesis in BMC cancer, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 100 papers, 10 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
100 citing papers in PubMed, 10 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Sleep disorders increase the risk of dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and cognitive decline: a meta-analysis.GeroScience · 2025Pooled it
- Imbalanced sleep increases mortality risk by 14-34%: a meta-analysis.GeroScience · 2025Pooled it
- Inadequate sleep increases stroke risk: evidence from a comprehensive meta-analysis of incidence and mortality.GeroScience · 2025Pooled it
- Risk factors for breast cancer: an umbrella review of observational cohort studies and causal relationship analysis.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Pooled it
- Sleep Traits to the Risk of Breast Cancer Disease Incidence, Adverse Progression and Mortality: Evidence From a Global Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.International journal of public health · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Sleep duration and health outcomes: an umbrella review.Sleep & breathing = Schlaf & Atmung · 2022Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Shift work and risk of skin cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Scientific reports · 2020Pooled it
- Cancer-Related Dysfunctional Beliefs About Sleep Mediate the Influence of Sleep Disturbance on Fear of Progression Among Patients With Surgically Resected Lung Cancer.Journal of Korean medical science · 2023Trial
- Article
- Article
- Device-measured movement behaviours and cancer incidence in a population sample of UK adults: Dual 24-hour analyses of postural and intensity compositions.BMC medicine · 2026Article
- Sleep duration, selected circulating biomarkers, and colorectal cancer risk.European journal of cancer prevention : the official journal of the European Cancer Prevention Organisation (ECP) · 2026Article
- Nocturnal Melatonin Deficiency in Colorectal Cancer: Independent Predictive Value Beyond Sleep Quality.The Turkish journal of gastroenterology : the official journal of Turkish Society of Gastroenterology · 2026Article
- Association between sleep and ovarian reserve in women undergoing IVF/ICSI: a Mendelian randomization and cross-sectional study.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2026Observational
- Sleep duration and the risk of epithelial ovarian cancer.Cancer causes & control : CCC · 2025Article
- Factors associated with the incidence of young-onset colorectal cancer: A cross-sectional study.Narra J · 2025Article
- Relationship between daytime napping duration and pan-cancer risk: a prospective cohort study based on the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS).Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2025Article
40 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe effect of sleep duration on cancer risk remains controversial. We aimed to quantify the available evidence on this relationship using categorical and dose-response meta-analyses.
methodsPopulation-based cohort studies and case-control studies with at least three categories of sleep duration were identified by searching PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library database up to July 2017.
resultsSixty-five studies from 25 articles were included, involving 1,550,524 participants and 86,201 cancer cases. The categorical meta-analysis revealed that neither short nor long sleep duration was associated with increased cancer risk (short: odds ratio [OR] = 1.01, 95% confidence intervals [CI] = 0.97-1.05; long: OR = 1.02, 95% CI = 0.97-1.07). Subgroup analysis revealed that short sleep duration was associated with cancer risk among Asians (OR = 1.36; 95% CI: 1.02-1.80) and long sleep duration significantly increased the risk of colorectal cancer (OR = 1.21; 95% CI: 1.08-1.34). The dose-response meta-analysis showed no significant relationship between sleep duration and cancer risk. When treated as two linear piecewise functions with a cut point of 7 h, similar nonsignificant associations were found (per 1-h reduction: OR = 1.02, 95% CI = 0.98-1.07; per 1-h increment: OR = 1.003, 95% CI = 0.97-1.03).
conclusionCategorical meta-analysis indicated that short sleep duration increased cancer risk in Asians and long sleep duration increased the risk of colorectal cancer, but these findings were not consistent in the dose-response meta-analysis. Long-term randomized controlled trials and well-designed prospective studies are needed to establish causality and to elucidate the mechanism underlying the association between sleep duration and cancer risk.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.