Association between APE1 T1349G polymorphism and prostate cancer risk: evidence from a meta-analysis

APE1 T1349G polymorphism was considered to be associated with risk of cancer, but studies on the association between APE1 T1349G polymorphism and risk of prostate cancer remained inconclusive. A meta-analysis of published studies was performed to precisely assess the association between APE1 Asp148Glu polymorphism and prostate cancer risk. PubMed, Embase, and Wanfang databases were searched for published case-control studies investigating the association between APE1 T1349G polymorphism and prostate cancer risk. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95 % confidence intervals (95 % CIs) were used to assess the strength of the association. Overall, seven studies with a total of 3,063 individuals were finally included into the meta-analysis. The heterogeneity analysis did not find obvious heterogeneity among those included studies. Meta-analysis of total seven studies did not find an obvious association between APE1 T1349G polymorphism and prostate cancer risk (G vs T OR (95 % CI) = 1.11 (0.99-1.24); GG vs TT OR (95 % CI) = 1.25 (0.96-1.62); TG vs TT OR (95 % CI) = 1.11 (0.95-1.30); GG/TG vs T OR (95 % CI) = 1.13 (0.97-1.32); GG vs TT/TG OR (95 % CI) = 1.16 (0.91-1.48)). Subgroup analyses by ethnicity showed that APE1 T1349G polymorphism was associated with increased risk of prostate cancer in Caucasians (G vs T OR (95 % CI) = 1.26 (1.02-1.56), P = 0.033; TG vs TT OR (95 % CI) = 1.44 (1.06-1.94), P = 0.019; GG/TG vs T OR (95 % CI) = 1.45 (1.08-1.94), P = 0.013). The meta-analysis suggests that APE1 T1349G polymorphism is associated with increased risk of prostate cancer, especially in Caucasians. More studies are needed to further identify the obvious association above.