Association between tumor necrosis factor-α rs1800629 polymorphism and risk of gastric cancer: a meta-analysis

Gastric cancer is mainly initiated by inflammation and chronic superficial gastritis, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) is an inflammatory cytokine which plays an important role in the inflammation. TNF-alpha rs1800629 G/A polymorphism was proposed to be associated with gastric cancer risk, but previous studies on Caucasians reported conflicting results. We performed a meta-analysis to comprehensively assess the association between TNF-alpha rs1800629 polymorphism and gastric cancer risk in Caucasians. The pooled odds ratio (OR) with 95 % confidence interval (95 % CI) was calculated to assess the association. Eleven case-control studies with 7,427 subjects were finally included into the meta-analysis. Overall, TNF-alpha rs1800629 polymorphism was significantly associated with the increased risk of gastric cancer under four genetic comparison models (A versus G: OR = 1.32, 95 % CI 1.12-1.56, P = 0.001; AA versus GG: OR = 1.76, 95 % CI 1.37-2.26, P < 0.001; AA versus GG/GA: OR = 1.62, 95 % CI 1.27-2.07, P < 0.001; AA/GA versus GG: OR = 1.35, 95 % CI 1.14-1.60, P = 0.001). Meta-analysis of those studies with high quality showed that TNF-alpha rs1800629 polymorphism was still significantly associated with the increased risk of gastric cancer under four genetic comparison models. There was no risk of publication bias in the meta-analysis. The meta-analysis suggests that TNF-alpha rs1800629 polymorphism is associated with the increased risk of gastric cancer in Caucasians.