Association between omentin and obstructive sleep apnea: A meta‐analysis

BackgroundObstructive sleep apnea (OSA) can lead to multisystem and multiorgan damage, which has attracted widespread attention from scholars. The pathogenesis of OSA is complex, and obesity plays an important role. Adipokine is secreted by adipose tissue, and its abnormal expression may be closely related to OSA. The relationship between omentin (a novel adipokine) and OSA is controversial. This study focuses on the important role of omentin in OSA and explores whether it can be regarded as a new target for the diagnosis and treatment of OSA.MethodPubMed, Embase, Web of Science, the Cochrane library, WANFANG, VIP, and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure were systematically searched for retrieving eligible studies until May 2022. Documents were screened according to strict inclusion and exclusion criteria, and data were extracted using Excel spreadsheets. The quality of the literature was assessed using the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale. RevMan 5.3 and Stata 12.0 software were used in this meta‐analysis for data synthesis.ResultA total of eight eligible studies with 23 databases involving 914 participants were included in this meta‐analysis. Combined data indicated that omentin levels in OSA patients were lower than that in controls (standardized mean difference = −1.54, 95% confidence interval = −2.07 to −1.00, p < 0.001). According to the subgroup analysis results of different races, sample source, gender, and the severity of the disease, compared with that in the control group, the level of omentin in OSA patients was significantly lower. When conducting sensitivity analysis, the results of the study were less stable. Meta‐analysis indicated that there was no publication bias in this study. The omentin levels were significantly lower in OSA patients. The findings suggest that omentin may be a potential marker for the diagnosis and treatment of OSA. However, the heterogeneity of this study is high, and more high‐quality large‐sample studies will be needed in the future.