Background: Over the last decade, an emerging role of novel cytokines in the pathogenesis of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) has been proposed by researches. The present study was performed to provide a more accurate estimate of the effect size of the association between leptin, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), and interleukin-6 (IL-6) and risk of GDM.

Methods: Online databases were looked up to August 2021 using the search string: (leptin OR TNF-α OR IL-6) AND “gestational diabetes”. Observational studies investigating the association of the selected cytokines and risk of GDM were included. Odds ratios and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to estimate pooled effect.

Results: 19 studies were included in the meta-analysis (6792 women; 1405 diagnosed with GDM). A significant association was found between higher circulating leptin and risk of GDM and the pooled estimate was 1.15 (95%CI: 1.05, 1.26). Higher circulating levels of IL-6 and TNF-α were associated with increased risk of GDM and the pooled estimates were 2.00 (95%CI: 1.20, 3.31) and 1.29 (95%CI: 1.13, 1.46), respectively.

Conclusions: The selected cytokines might be used as potential markers in predicting GDM and considered as contributing factors to the GDM pathogenesis.

This dataset has been collected by two independent reviewers (EH & ZM) using information obtained from the selected studies for performing the submitted systematic review and meta-analysis manuscript.