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TNF-alpha polymorphisms and breast cancer

  • Epidemiology
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Abstract

Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) is an important pro-inflammatory cytokine in the development and progress in human cancer. TNF-α polymorphisms have been confirmed to influence the risk for several types of cancer, however, the associations between TNF-α polymorphisms and breast cancer (BC) remain controversial and ambiguous. The aim of this meta-analysis is to explore more precise estimations regarding this point. Electronic searches of several databases were conducted for all online publications on the associations between TNF-α-238, -308, -857, -863, -1031, -1210 polymorphisms and BC through March 2011. Odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated to assess the strength of these associations in fixed- and random-effect models with Review manager 5.0. A total of 17 studies with 44,442 BC patients and 49,926 controls involved were identified. This meta-analysis showed no significant association between TNF-α-308 polymorphism and BC (AA + GA vs. GG: OR = 0.95, 95% CI = 0.82–1.09) in overall and (OR = 1.44, 95% CI = 0.61–3.40) Asian populations, however, a negative association was shown in Caucasian subgroup (OR = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.85–0.97). As regards the TNF-α-238 polymorphism, the OR values (95% CI) were 0.99 (0.94–1.05), 0.94 (0.78–1.14), and 1.00 (0.95–1.05) for the overall, Asian, and Caucasian studies, respectively. No significant associations were found for other polymorphisms. Furthermore, there was a coincidence in the sensitivity analysis of these associations. No publication bias was detected in this study. To sum up, no significant associations were found between the TNF-α-308, -238, -857, -863, -1031, -1210 polymorphisms and the risk for BC in overall populations, whereas a negative association was found between TNF-α-308 polymorphism and BC in Caucasian populations.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Harbin Special Funds for Research of Scientific and Technological Innovative Talents (No. RC2011QN004139), the Heilongjiang Province Natural Science Fund of China (No. D200862) and the Key Technologies R & D Program of Heilongjiang Provincial Government in China (No. GB05C401-03).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Oncology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, 246 Xuefu Road, 150086, Harbin, People’s Republic of China

    Yu Yang & Yuqing Xu

  2. Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Public Health, Harbin Medical University, 157 Baojian Road, 150086, Harbin, People’s Republic of China

    Rennan Feng

  3. The Central Laboratory & Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, 23 Youzheng Road, 150001, Harbin, People’s Republic of China

    Sheng Bi

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  1. Yu Yang
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  2. Rennan Feng
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yuqing Xu.

Additional information

Y. Yang, R. N. Feng, and S. Bi contributed equally to this work.

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Yang, Y., Feng, R., Bi, S. et al. TNF-alpha polymorphisms and breast cancer. Breast Cancer Res Treat 129, 513–519 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-011-1494-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-011-1494-2

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