XRCC1 polymorphisms and lung cancer risk in Caucasian populations: a meta-analysis

X-ray repair cross-complementing group 1 (XRCC1) plays an important role in the base excision repair. Many studies have reported the association of XRCC1 Arg399Gln, Arg194Trp and Arg280His polymorphisms with lung cancer risk, but the results remained controversial. In this meta-analysis, we performed a meta-analysis of ten published case-control studies in Caucasian populations to investigate the associations between lung cancer risk and XRCC1 Arg399Gln (2187 cases and 3453 controls from ten studies), Arg194Trp (857 cases and 2108 controls from six studies) and Arg280His (894 cases and 1133 controls from five studies). The results in total population showed that XRCC1 codon 399 polymorphism (OR=0.93, 95% CI=0.82-1.04) and codon 194 (OR=0.94, 95% CI=0.73-1.21) was significantly associated with lung cancer risk. However, no association was found between lung cancer risk and codon 280 (OR=1.17, 95% CI=0.89-1.54). In conclusion, this meta-analysis has demonstrated that codon 399 and codon 194 might have contributed to individual susceptibility to lung cancer in Caucasian populations. To further evaluate effect of XRCC1 polymorphisms, large studies with thousands of subjects are required to get conclusive results.