927) For the

927). For the subgroup analyses by histology, the Egger selleck test was also not significant (p = 0.311) and for the subgroup

analyses by smoking status, the p value of Egger test was 0.552. The funnel plots (Figures 4, 5, and 6) did not exhibit any patent asymmetry. These results indicated there was no evidence of publication bias in our meta-analysis. Figure 4 Begg’s funnel plot of XRCC3 Thr241Met polymorphisms for the (C/T + T/T) versus vs C/C for all studies. Figure 5 Begg’s funnel plot of XRCC3 Thr241Met polymorphisms for the (C/T + T/T) versus vs C/C stratified by histological types of lung cancer. Figure 6 Begg’s funnel plot of XRCC3 Thr241Met polymorphisms for the (C/T + T/T) versus vs C/C stratified by smoking status of population. Discussion It is well recognized that there is a range of individual susceptibility to the same kind of cancer even with identical environmental exposure. Host factors, including polymorphisms of genes

involved in carcinogenesis may have accounted for BLZ945 mouse this difference. Therefore, genetic susceptibility to cancer has been a research focus in scientific community. Recently, genetic variants of the DNA repair genes in the etiology of several cancers have drawn increasing attention. As it is known that individual studies with a small sample size may have not enough statistical power to detect a small risk factor, in this meta-analysis, we involved a total of 4123 lung cancer cases and 5597 controls and explored the check details association between the XRCC3 Thr241Met polymorphisms and lung cancer risk. Our results indicated that XRCC3 Thr241Met polymorphism was not significantly associated with the susceptibility to lung cancer. Additionally, no significant associations were also found in the stratified analysis by ethnicity, RVX-208 histological types or smoking status. Population stratification is a troubling issue and can lead to spurious evidence on the association between markers and a disease, implicating the disparate effects of environment and ethnic differences on genetic background

[32]. In this meta-analysis, ethnicity stratification of differences between Asians and Caucasians was not found. Tobacco smoke contains many known carcinogens and pro-carcinogens, such as benzopyrene and nitrosamine. Our meta-analysis results showed no significantly risks were found to be associated with the XRCC3 Thr241Met polymorphisms and lung cancer risk in smokers or non-smokers. There were only small number of studies examined the association between the XRCC3 Thr241Met gene polymorphism and lung cancer risk in smokers or non-smokers; moreover, the p value of Q test for heterogeneity test was significant. Considering the limited studies and P value of Q-test for heterogeneity test included in this meta-analysis, our results should be interpreted with caution.

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