The association between the rs6495309 polymorphism in CHRNA3 gene and lung cancer risk in Chinese: a meta-analysis

The association between the rs6495309 polymorphism in CHRNA3 gene and lung cancer risk has been studied in Chinese by several number case-control control studies with small number of cases and controls, and these studies might be underpowered to reveal the true association. Thus we sought to investigate the association with the risk of lung cancer by performing a comprehensive meta-analysis on the polymorphism. Five case-control studies were extracted from 3 articles on the polymorphism involving 4608 lung cancer cases and 4617 controls. The results of meta-analysis showed that significant increased risk were found for the polymorphism with the risk of lung cancer in Chinese: OR = 1.47, 95%CI = 1.33–1.63, P < 0.00001 for CC + TC vs. TT; OR = 1.24, 95%CI = 1.07–1.44, P = 0.005 for CC vs. TT + TC; OR = 1.62, 95%CI = 1.32–2.00, P < 0.00001 for CC vs. TT; OR = 1.42, 95%CI = 1.26–1.61, P < 0.00001 for CT vs. TT; OR = 1.42, 95%CI = 1.26–1.61, P < 0.00001. No significant publication bias was found for the five genetic models. Our findings demonstrated that CHRNA3 gene rs6495309 polymorphism might be a risk factor for the development of lung cancer in Chinese.