Assessment of the association between XRCC1 Arg399Gln polymorphism and lung cancer in Chinese

X-ray repair cross-complementing group 1 (XRCC1) is one of the major DNA repair proteins involved in the base excision repair and plays an important role in the maintenance of genomic integrity. Polymorphisms in XRCC1 may alter the function and repair capacity of XRCC1 protein which further results in the genetic instability and lung carcinogenesis. Previous studies investigating the relationship between XRCC1 Arg399Gln polymorphism and lung cancer risk in Chinese yielded contradictory results. A meta-analysis was performed to clarify the effect of XRCC1 Arg399Gln polymorphism on lung cancer. The association was assessed by calculating the pooled odds ratio (OR) with 95 % confidence intervals (95 %CI). Nineteen studies with a total of 12,835 participants were included into this meta-analysis. Overall, there was an obvious association between XRCC1 Arg399Gln polymorphism and increased risk of lung cancer under three genetic models (Gln vs. Arg: OR?=?1.13, 95 %CI 1.01–1.25, P?=?0.029; GlnGln vs. ArArg: OR?=?1.41, 95 %CI 1.07–1.84, P?=?0.013; GlnGln vs. ArArg/ArgGln: OR?=?1.37, 95 %CI 1.07–1.76, P?=?0.013). Meta-analysis of 18 studies with high quality also found that there was an obvious association between XRCC1 Arg399Gln polymorphism and increased risk of lung cancer under three genetic models. There was no obvious risk of bias in the meta-analysis. Data from the current meta-analysis support the obvious association between XRCC1 Arg399Gln polymorphism and increased risk of lung cancer in Chinese.