Association of Alpha-Methylacyl-CoA Racemase Gene Polymorphisms with Susceptibility to Prostate Cancer: a Meta-Analysis

Prostate cancer (PCa) is one of the most common malignancies in men with approximately 0.9 million newly diagnosed cases and 0.26 million deaths in 2008 worldwide (Jemal et al., 2011). Until now, the exact carcinogenic mechanism of prostate cancer has remained unclear (Mahmoud et al., 2014). It is widely accepted that carcinogenesis of prostate cancer is affected by genetic susceptibility and environmental exposure, for instance, a fatty acid diet (Amankwah et al., 2012; Doolan et al., 2014; Askari et al., 2014). Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), as a type of genetic predisposing factor, might lead to changes in protein encoding and be involved in the alterative risk of prostate cancer (Yang et al., 2013; Zhang et al., 2014). Therefore, it is crucial to focus on these genetic markers for their application in susceptibility prediction, early diagnosis and individualized therapeutic regimens of prostate cancer.