BACKGROUND: Many epidemiology studies have indicated that several functional polymorphisms of the IL-27 gene may contribute to individual susceptibility to cancer. Nevertheless, the data arising from these studies were inconclusive. Therefore, we conducted the current meta-analysis aiming to elucidate the effects of IL-27 polymorphisms (rs153109, rs17855750, and rs181206) on cancer susceptibility.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: We searched the CNKI (Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure), Wanfang database, PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar for all eligible publications. We used odds ratios (ORs) corresponding with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) by using the random/fixed-effects model to evaluate the association. Finally, a total of 12 publications, including 27 case-control studies comprising of 7570 patients and 9839 controls, were enrolled in our meta-analysis.

RESULTS: Our work demonstrates that IL-27 rs17855750 polymorphism is significantly associated with cancer susceptibility, particularly for bladder cancer. However, no association between IL-27 rs153109 and rs181206 polymorphisms and cancer susceptibility was identified. When a stratification analysis was performed by cancer type, we identified an increased susceptibility of bladder cancer in rs153109 polymorphism. Moreover, in the stratification analysis by genotyping method, we identified an increased susceptibility for PCR-RFLP group in rs17855750 polymorphism, whereas a decreased susceptibility was identified in rs153109 polymorphism.

CONCLUSIONS: Our study shows that IL-27 rs17855750 polymorphism is significantly associated with increased susceptibility to cancer in Chinese.

Keywords: Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Interleukin-27 - genetics, Neoplasms - genetics, Polymorphism, Genetic