Quantitative assessment of the association between TP53 Arg72Pro polymorphism and risk of glioma

Many studies have investigated on the association between TP53 Arg72Pro polymorphism and risk of glioma, but the impact of TP53 Arg72Pro polymorphism on glioma risk is unclear owing to the obvious inconsistence among those studies. To shed light on these inconclusive findings and get a quantitative assessment of the association between the TP53 Arg72Pro polymorphism and risk of glioma, we conducted a meta-analysis of eligible studies. We searched PubMed and Embase databases for studies investigating on the association between the TP53 Arg72Pro polymorphism and risk of glioma. The pooled odds ratios (OR) with their 95 % confidence intervals (95 % CI) was calculated to assess the association between the TP53 Arg72Pro polymorphism and risk of glioma. A total of 12 studies were finally included into the meta-analysis. Meta-analysis of the 12 studies showed that TP53 Arg72Pro polymorphism was not associated with the risk of glioma (ORPro vs. Arg = 1.07, 95 % CI 0.93∼1.22; ORProPro vs. ArgArg = 1.02, 95 % CI 0.85∼1.22; ORProPro/ArgPro vs. ArgArg = 1.06, 95 % CI 0.85∼1.34; and ORProPro vs. ArgArg/ArgPro = 1.07, 95 % CI 0.91∼1.27). Subgroup analyses by ethnicity further identified that TP53 Arg72Pro polymorphism was not associated with the risk of glioma in Caucasians. However, there was a mild association between the TP53 Arg72Pro polymorphism and risk of glioma in Asians (ORProPro vs. ArgArg/ArgPro = 1.42, 95 % CI 1.00∼2.02). Thus, there is limited evidence for the association between the TP53 Arg72Pro polymorphism and risk of glioma, and more studies are needed to provide a more comprehensive assessment of the association in Asians.