No Evidence of Association of the Arg72Pro p53 Gene Polymorphism with Cancer Risk in the Saudi Population: a Meta-Analysis

Background: Earlier studies on the association between p53 codon 72 Arg>Pro polymorphism and cancerrisk were inconclusive and conflicting for the Saudi population. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis toinvestigate the relationship between the codon 72 Arg>Pro polymorphism and overall cancer risk in SaudiArabia. Materials and
Methods: We searched all eligible published studies and data were pooled together toperform the meta-analysis. Pooled odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculatedfor homozygous, heterozygous, dominant and recessive genetic models.
Results: A total of five eligible publishedstudies covering 502 cancer cases and 784 healthy controls were included in the meta-analysis. No publicationbias was detected in this study. The results suggested that the variant (Pro vs Arg: p=0.960; OR=1.004, 95%CI=0.852-1.183), homozygous (Pro.Pro vs Arg.Arg: p=0.970; OR=1.006, 95% CI=0.729-1.390), heterozygous(Arg.Pro vs Arg.Arg: p=0.473; OR=0.783, 95% CI=0.402-1.527) carriers were not associated with overall cancerrisk. Similarly, dominant (Pro.Pro+Pro.Arg vs Arg.Arg: p=0.632; OR=0.886, 95% CI=0.540-1.454) and recessive(Pro.Pro vs Pro.Arg+Arg.Arg: p=0.269; OR=1.163, 95%CI=0.890-1.521) models also did not indicate increasedrisk of cancer.
Conclusions: The current meta-analysis suggests that the codon 72 Arg>Pro polymorphism ofthe p53 gene might not contribute to cancer susceptibility in Saudi population. Future well designed large casecontrol studies are needed to validate our findings.