Meta-analysis of association between TP53 Arg72Pro polymorphism and bladder cancer risk

Objectives: To perform a meta-analysis to explore a more robust estimate of the effect of the TP53 Arg72Pro polymorphism on bladder cancer risk. Studies investigating the association between TP53 Arg72Pro polymorphism and bladder cancer risk have reported conflicting results.

Methods: All eligible studies were searched in PubMed. The quality of the studies was evaluated according to a predefined scale. Crude odds ratios, with the 95% confidence intervals, were assessed for the association using fixed- and random-effects models.

Results: We identified 10 case-control studies involving 3549 subjects for the present meta-analysis. Overall, no evidence of an association was observed between the TP53 genotypes and bladder cancer susceptibility when all the studies were pooled into the meta-analysis. However, a significantly decreased risk of bladder cancer was associated with TP53 genotypes for Arg/Arg versus Pro/Pro (odds ratio 0.74, 95% confidence interval 0.55-0.99) and Arg/Arg plus Arg/Pro versus Pro/Pro (odds ratio 0.77, 95% confidence interval 0.59-1.00) in Asians. In contrast, no effect of this polymorphism on bladder cancer in whites, Africans, or other population was observed when only high-quality scored studies were considered.

Conclusions: The results of the present meta-analysis suggest that the TP53 Arg72 allele is a protective factor and that the Pro/Pro genotype might increase the susceptibility to bladder cancer in Asians. The conflicting findings among studies might have resulted from variations in the allele frequencies among the different races, as well as the methodologic quality of the studies.