Association between the XRCC3 Thr241Met polymorphism and breast cancer risk: an updated meta-analysis of 36 case-control studies.

BACKGROUND The X-ray repair cross-complementing group 3 (XRCC3) is a highly suspected candidate gene for cancer susceptibility. Attention has been drawn upon associations of the XRCC3 Thr241Met polymorphism with breast cancer risk. However, the previous published findings remain controversial. Hence, we performed a meta-analysis to accurately evaluate any association between breast cancer and XRCC3 T241M (23, 812 cases and 25, 349 controls) in different inheritance models. MATERIALS AND METHODS PubMed and Web of Science databases were searched systematically until December 31, 2013 to obtain all the records evaluating the association between the XRCC3 Thr241Met polymorphism and breast cancer risk. Crude odds ratios (ORs) together with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to assess the strength of associations. RESULTS When all eligible studies were pooled into the meta analysis of XRCC3 T241M polymorphism, a significantly increased breast cancer risk was observed in heterozygote comparison (OR=1.06, 95%CI=1.01-1.12). No significant associations were found in other models. In subgroup analysis, this polymorphism seemed to be associated with elevated breast risk in Asians. No publication bias was detected. CONCLUSIONS This meta-analysis suggests that the T241M polymorphism confers a weakly increased breast cancer risk. A study with the larger sample size is needed to further evaluate gene-gene and gene-environment interactions of the XRCC3 T241M polymorphism with breast cancer risk.