The TP53 codon 72 Pro/Pro genotype may be associated with an increased lung cancer risk in North China: an updated...

The polymorphism of TP53 codon 72, a transversion of G to C (Arg to Pro), has been demonstrated to be associated with the risk for lung cancer. However, individual studies conducted in Chinese have provided conflicting and inconclusive findings. Thus, we performed a meta-analysis by pooling all currently available case-control studies to estimate the effect of TP53 codon 72 Arg/Pro polymorphism on the development of lung cancer in the Chinese population.

Related studies were identified from PubMed, Springer Link, Ovid, Chinese Wanfang Data Knowledge Service Platform, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Chinese Biology Medicine (CBM) till 10 October 2014. Pooled ORs and 95% CIs were used to assess the strength of the associations.

A total of 12 case-control studies including 3681 lung cancer cases and 4358 controls were involved in this meta-analysis. Overall, no significant association was found between TP53 codon 72 variation and lung cancer risk when all studies in the Chinese population pooled into this meta-analysis. However, in the subgroup analysis by geographical locations, significantly increased risk was found in the population from North China under all genetic models (Allele model, OR=1.22, 95% CI: 1.04-1.43; Dominant model, OR=1.13, 95% CI: 1.01-1.25; Recessive model, OR=1.41, 95% CI: 1.07-1.87; Homozygous model, OR=1.47, 95% CI: 1.09-1.99; Heterozygous model, OR=1.40, 95% CI: 1.04-1.89).

This meta-analysis provides the evidence that TP53 codon 72 polymorphism may contribute to the lung cancer development in North China and studies with large sample size and gene-gene (gene-environment) interactions are warranted to verify this finding.