Objective  To explore the association between sleep duration and cancer incidence in Chinese population and to provide evidences for cancer prevention and control.

  Methods  We carried out a systematic search, as well as backward citation tracking, for literatures published up to September 30th 2018 on sleep duration and cancer incidence risk in Chinese population through Wanfang Data Knowledge Service Platform, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), the Chinese Scientific Journal Database (VIP), PubMed, Embase and Web of Sciences for a meta-analysis with Stata 12.0 software.

  Results  Totally 7 studies (4 published in English and 3 in Chinese) were included, and 3 104 cancer cases were pooled into the meta-analysis. The meta-analysis revealed that compared to that in the controls, increased cancer risk was not observed in the cases with both short or long sleep duration (P > 0.05). While, subgroup analysis demonstrated that long sleep duration was associated with cancer risk in case-control studies (odds ratio OR = 1.31; 95 confidence interval 95% CI: 1.11 – 1.55). Sensitivity analysis and publication bias test indicated that there was no publication bias for included cohort studies and case-control studies and the results of the meta-analysis were stable.

  Conclusion  Based on evidences from case-control studies, long sleep duration could increase cancer risk in Chinese population.