Genetic Association between ERCC5 rs17655 Polymorphism and Colorectal Cancer Risk: Evidence Based on a Meta-analysis

Background: Previous studies evaluating the association between the excision repair cross complementinggroup 5 (ERCC5) gene rs17655 polymorphism and colorectal cancer susceptibility generated controversial results.To generate large-scale evidence on whether the ERCC5 rs17655 polymorphism might indeed be associatedwith colorectal cancer susceptibility, the present meta-analysis was performed. Materials and
Methods: Datawere collected from PubMed, Embase and Web of Science, with the last report up to Apr 03, 2015. Odds ratios(ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to assess the strength of any association.
Results: A total ofnine studies including 5,102 cases and 6,326 controls based on the search criteria were included and significantassociations were found between ERCC5 rs17655 polymorphism CG vs GG overall (OR = 1.29, 95% CI=1.18~1.40) and in the dominant model (OR=1.23, 95% CI =1.13~1.33). On subgroup analysis by ethnicity andsource of controls, the ERCC5 rs17655 polymorphism was found to correlate with the pathogenesis of colorectalcancer among Asians and Caucasians and with hospital-based populations.
Conclusions: This meta-analysissuggests that the ERCC5 rs17655 polymorphism might contribute to genetic susceptibility to colorectal cancer.