Research Paper|Volume 12, Issue 24|pp 25373—25394

Effect of paternal age on offspring birth defects: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Yiwei Fang¹, Yongfeng Wang¹, Meilin Peng¹, Jia Xu¹, Zunpan Fan¹, Chunyan Liu¹, Kai Zhao¹, Huiping Zhang¹

¹Institute of Reproductive Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

Received: June 24, 2020Accepted: September 20, 2020Published: November 20, 2020

Copyright: © 2020 Fang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Objective: This systematic review and meta-analysis was aimed at determining whether paternal age is a risk factor for offspring birth defects.

Results: A total of 38 and 11 studies were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis, respectively. Compared with reference, fathers aged 25 to 29, young fathers (< 20 years) could increase the risk of urogenital abnormalities (OR: 1.50, 95 % CI: 1.03–2.19) and chromosome disorders (OR: 1.38, 95 % CI: 1.12–1.52) in their offsprings; old fathers (≥ 40 years) could increase the risk of cardiovascular abnormalities (OR: 1.10, 95 % CI: 1.01–1.20), facial deformities (OR: 1.08, 95 % CI: 1.00–1.17), urogenital abnormalities (OR: 1.28, 95 % CI: 1.07–1.52), and chromosome disorders (OR: 1.30, 95 % CI: 1.12–1.52).

Conclusions: Our study indicated that paternal age is associated with a moderate increase in the incidence of urogenital and cardiovascular abnormalities, facial deformities, and chromosome disorders.

Methods: PubMed, Web of Science, the Cochrane Library, and Embase were searched for relevant literatures from 1960 to February 2020. The systematic review follows PRISMA guidelines. Relevant meta-analyses were performed.