New onset diabetes mellitus after liver transplantation and hepatitis C virus infection: meta-analysis of clinical studies

New onset diabetes mellitus (NODM) postliver transplantation (LT) is very common and may negatively affect patient and graft survival, but its causative mechanism is still unclear. This study was to analyze the connection between Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and NODM after LT by systematically reviewing published medical literature. We electronically searched databases of MEDLINE, EMBASE and the Cochrane Library from January 1980 to January 2008. Only retrospective studies could be identified. Seven of them were subjected to the meta-analysis. Analysis was performed by using revman 4.2 software. We found that HCV increased the prevalence of NODM [OR 2.46; 95%CI (1.44, 4.19)]. Then, we further analyzed the association between HCV and persistent-NODM (P-NODM) after LT. The result showed that prevalence of P-NODM was higher in HCV-positive group than in HCV-negative group with marginally statistical significance [OR = 1.39; 95%CI (1.06, 1.83)]. The present meta-analysis based on retrospective studies suggested a significant relationship between HCV and NODM after LT, and it seems that HCV infection might also increase the prevalence of P-NODM. Multicenter, large sized prospective studies are still needed to further confirm these results.