HIF-1α -1790G>A polymorphism significantly increases the risk of digestive tract cancer: a meta-analysis

To investigate the association between hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) polymorphisms (-1772C>T and -1790G>A) and the risk of digestive tract cancer.

A total of 13 eligible studies were retrieved from PubMed, EMBASE, and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure database. The odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to estimate the strength of the associations.

By pooling the eligible studies, we found that the HIF-1α -1772C>T polymorphism was not associated with the risk of developing digestive tract cancer (dominant comparison, OR: 1.156; 95%CI: 0.839-1.593; P heterogeneity = 0.007), and no significant association was found in the Asian population or the Caucasian population. However, for the -1790G>A polymorphism, carriers of the variant -1790A allele had a significantly increased risk of digestive tract cancer compared with those with the wildtype -1790G allele (dominant comparison, OR: 3.252; 95%CI: 1.661-6.368; P heterogeneity < 0.001). Additionally, this increased risk of digestive cancer was only detected in Asians; there was no significant association in Caucasians.

This meta-analysis demonstrates that the HIF-1α -1790G>A polymorphism is associated with a significantly increased risk of digestive tract cancer, while the -1772C>T polymorphism is not.