The alkaline comet assay has been widely used to determine genotoxicity in human populations exposed to arsenic. The sample sizes of earlier studies were usually small, and inconsistent results were found. Meta-analyses can merge the results of multiple studies of the same type and increase the credibility of the conclusion by increasing the sample size. Thus, to investigate the monitoring effect of alkaline comet assay on genotoxicity for arsenic exposed population, meta-analyses were performed. Thirteen studies were found to meet the inclusion criteria and were included in this study; of them, twelve articles were of medium quality (15–20 points), only one study was of high quality (21–27 points). Meta-analyses showed that the overall estimates of Mean Ratio (MR, defined as the mean value of the response in the exposed group divided by that in the reference group) were 2.81(95 % confidence interval (CI) 1.93–4.10); 2.37(95 % CI, 1.73–3.26), and 1.69(95 %CI, 1.29–2.20) for comet tail length, % tail DNA, and tail moment, respectively. This shows that the level of DNA damage in arsenic exposed population is significantly higher than that in control populations. A meta-analysis of the correlation coefficients showed that the overall estimate was 0.52 (95 %CI, 0.48∼0.56, P<0.05) with all correlation coefficients included, but it changed to 0.24 (95 %CI, 0.17∼0.28, P<0.05) when two abnormal correlation coefficients were excluded, suggesting there was a positive correlation between arsenic load in vivo and DNA damage, but the overall estimate value of coefficients was unstable. Therefore, we conclude that the alkaline comet assay can be used as an effective genotoxic biomonitoring tool for arsenic-exposed populations. However, more and higher-quality studies are still needed to verify its actual application value.

碱性彗星试验已被广泛用于确定暴露于砷的人群的基因毒性。早期研究的样本量通常很小，并且发现了不一致的结果。Meta 分析可以合并多个同类型研究的结果，通过增加样本量来增加结论的可信度。因此，为了研究碱性彗星试验对砷暴露人群遗传毒性的监测效果，进行了荟萃分析。发现 13 项研究符合纳入标准并被纳入本研究；其中，12篇中等质量（15-20分），只有一篇研究质量高（21-27分）。荟萃分析表明，平均比率 (MR, 定义为暴露组的响应平均值除以参考组的响应平均值）为 2.81（95% 置信区间 (CI) 1.93–4.10）；彗星尾长、尾 DNA 百分比和尾矩分别为 2.37（95 % CI，1.73–3.26）和 1.69（95 % CI，1.29–2.20）。这表明砷暴露人群的DNA损伤水平明显高于对照人群。相关系数的荟萃分析表明，包括所有相关系数在内的总体估计值为 0.52（95 %CI，0.48∼0.56，P<0.05），但变为 0.24（95 %CI，0.17∼0.28，P<0.05）。 0.05）排除两个异常相关系数时，说明体内砷负荷与DNA损伤呈正相关，但系数整体估计值不稳定。所以，我们得出结论，碱性彗星试验可用作砷暴露人群的有效遗传毒性生物监测工具。但仍需更多、更高质量的研究来验证其实际应用价值。