CASP8 rs3834129 (-652 6N insertion/deletion) Polymorphism and Colorectal Cancer Susceptibility: An Updated Meta-Analysis

CASP8 rs3834129 polymorphism (-652 6N insertion/deletion) is a genetic alteration which might affect the apoptosis pathway caspase enzyme. The impaired caspase enzyme would lead to the change of cancer risk. By now, the role of CASP8 rs3834129 polymorphism has been widely investigated. However, the relationship of this genetic variant on colorectal cancer (CRC) susceptibility still remains inconsistent. Therefore, we further investigated the role of rs3834129 polymorphism on CRC risk. Eligible published studies were retrieved from EMBASE, PubMed, CNKI and WANFANG database updates to March 2018. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to assess the relationship strengths. In general, we successfully retrieved 13 studies (8 publications) involving 13058 cases and 14418 controls. The meta-analysis results demonstrated that rs3834129 polymorphism was associated with a decreased CRC risk in heterozygous model (ID vs. II: OR = 0.94, 95% CI = 0.88-0.99), but not the homozygous and allele models. Furthermore, significantly decreased risk was also found among Asian (ID vs. II: OR = 0.86, 95% CI = 0.76-0.98), and high quality score group (ID vs. II: OR = 0.90, 95% CI = 0.81-1.00) in the stratified analyses. Taken together, we showed that CASP8 rs3834129 polymorphism influences CRC susceptibility in a weak impact manner. More case-control studies are warranted to validate such relationship.