Associations of polymorphisms in interleukins with susceptibility to breast cancer: Evidence from a meta-analysis

Associations between polymorphisms in interleukins and breast cancer (BC) were already investigated by many studies, yet with controversial findings. The aim of this meta-analysis was to better clarify associations between polymorphisms in interleukins and BC by combing the results of all relevant articles.

Eligible articles were searched from Pubmed, Embase, Web of Science and CNKI. We used Review Manager to combine the results of eligible studies.

Fifty-seven studies were included in this meta-analysis. We found that IL-6 rs1800796 (dominant comparison: OR = 0.70, 95% CI 0.53-0.92), IL-8 rs4073 (dominant comparison: OR = 0.74, 95% CI 0.61-0.89; over-dominant comparison: OR = 1.16, 95% CI 1.05-1.29; allele comparison: OR = 0.82, 95% CI 0.69-0.89), IL-10 rs1800896 (recessive comparison: OR = 1.28, 95% CI 1.12-1.47) and IL-18 rs1946518 (dominant comparison: OR = 0.80, 95% CI 0.65-0.97; allele comparison: OR = 0.74, 95% CI 0.59-0.93) polymorphisms were all significantly associated with BC in overall combined analyses. In subgroup analyses, we noticed that IL-6 rs1800796, IL-8 rs4073, IL-10 rs1800896, IL-18 rs1946518 and rs187238 polymorphisms were all significantly associated with susceptibility to BC in East Asians from China.

Collectively, this meta-analysis demonstrated that IL-6 rs1800796, IL-8 rs4073, IL-10 rs1800896, IL-18 rs1946518 and rs187238 polymorphisms may confer susceptibility to BC for East Asians from China.