Genetic association between p73 G4C14–A4T14 polymorphism and risk of squamous cell carcinoma

This study is to evaluate the association between p73 G4C14–A4T14 polymorphism and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) risk in diverse populations. We searched the PubMed, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Chinese Biomedicine databases for all articles on the association between p73 G4C14–A4T14 polymorphism and SCC risk through March 2014. We performed a comprehensive meta-analysis of six case–control studies that included 1,758 SCC cases and 2,970 case-free controls. All analyses were performed using STATA 11.0, using two-sided P values. Overall, this meta-analysis showed that the p73 G4C14–A4T14 polymorphism was associated with a significantly increased risk of SCC in three genetic models. However, after excluding one study deviating from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium, the results then demonstrated that the p73 G4C14–A4T14 polymorphism was only associated with elevated risk of cervical squamous cell carcinoma (for AT/GC vs GC/GC: OR 1.51, 95 % CI 1.14–2.00, P heterogeneity = 0.996; for AT/AT+AT/GC vs GC/GC: OR 1.42, 95 % CI 1.08–1.87, P heterogeneity = 0.994) in subgroup analysis by tumor sites. No publication bias was found in the present study. This meta-analysis suggests that the p73 G4C14–A4T14 polymorphism is associated with an increased risk of cervical squamous cell carcinoma. Further large and well-designed studies are needed to confirm this association.