Relationship between XRCC3 T241M polymorphism and gastric cancer risk: a meta-analysis

The X-ray repair complementing defective repair in Chinese hamster cells 3 (XRCC3) gene is a member of the RAD51 gene family. It encodes an important protein that functions in the homologous recombination repair of DNA double-strand break. In this study, our aim was to explore the relationship between XRCC3 T241M polymorphism and gastric cancer risk. Performing both the overall meta-analysis and subgroup meta-analysis based on ethnicity, source of controls, and cancer location with a total of 6 eligible studies (1,154 cases and 1,487 controls in all), we detected no significant gastric cancer risk variation for all genetic models in the overall analysis and in the subgroup analysis based on cancer location. What is interesting is in the subgroup analysis based on ethnicity, where significantly decreased gastric cancer risk was observed for recessive model in Asians (OR = 0.69, 95% CI = 0.50–0.95), while significantly increased gastric cancer risk was detected for dominant model in Caucasians (OR = 1.45, 95% CI = 1.01–2.08). In summary, according to the results of our meta-analysis, the XRCC3 T241M polymorphism might influence gastric cancer risk oppositely in Asians and Caucasians.