p73 G4C14-A4T14 polymorphism and cancer risk: a meta-analysis based on 27 case-control studies

p73 G4C14-A4T14 polymorphism has been hypothesised to be associated with the risk of cancer development by many epidemiological studies, however, the available results were conflicting. To derive a more precise estimation of association between the p73 G4C14-A4T14 polymorphism and risk of cancer, we performed a meta-analysis based on 8017 cancer cases and 11610 controls from 25 publications with 27 individual case-control studies. The odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to assess the strength of the association. Overall, We found that the variant AT/AT homozygote was associated with a significantly increased risk of all types of cancer (homozygote comparison: OR = 1.35, 95% CI = 1.11-1.65; recessive model comparison: OR = 1.32, 95% CI = 1.11-1.58). In the subgroup analyses by ethnicity/country, the results suggested that AT/AT genotype was significantly associated with risk of cancer development among Caucasians and Asians, especially for the Americans and Japanese. Moreover; when stratifying by types of cancer, significantly increased cancer risks were observed for colorectal cancer, 'head and neck cancers' and 'other cancers'. Interestingly, when stratifying by source of controls, a significantly elevated risk was found among hospital-based studies but not among population-based studies. Limiting the analysis to the studies within Hardy Weinberg equilibrium, the results were persistent and robust. No publication bias was found in the present study. This meta-analysis suggests that the p73 -AT allele may be a low-penetrant risk factor for cancer development.