Statins on hepatocellular carcinoma risk in hepatitis B or C patients protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Chronic hepatitis B (HBV) and C virus (HCV) infection causes liver cancer. This protocol is to provide the methods used to assess the relationship between statins and HCC risk in hepatitis B or C patients.

METHODS: We will search comprehensively the PubMed (medline), Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Database from their inception to November 2017. We will include studies that evaluated and clearly defined exposure to statins, reported the HCC incidence in hepatitis B/C patients or HBV/HCV-related cirrhosis patients, provided effective comparison groups, and reported risk estimates, such as hazard ratios, relative risks, or odds ratios with corresponding 95% confidence intervals or sufficient data for their estimation. We will use Stata (version 15.0) to compute the data synthesis carefully when a meta-analysis is allowed.

RESULTS: This study will provide a high-quality synthesis of current evidence of statins on HCC risk in hepatitis B or C patients.

CONCLUSION: The conclusion of our systematic review will provide evidence to judge whether statin is an effective intervention for hepatitis B or C patients.