association between sult1a1 arg213his (rs9282861) polymorphism and risk of breast cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: the arg213his (rs9282861) polymorphism of sulfotransferase family 1a member 1 (sult1a1) gene has been reported to be associated with risk of breast cancer in some epidemiological studies. however, the results of these studies are conflicting and inconclusive. therefore, this systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate the association of sult1a1 arg213his (rs9282861) polymorphism with susceptibility to breast cancer. study design: a systematic review and meta-analysis. methods: a comprehensive literature search for eligible studies was conducted in pubmed, elsevier, science direct, scopus and google scholar databases up to october 5, 2017. pooled odds ratios (ors) with their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (95% cis) were used to evaluate the strength of the association using fixed effects models and random effects models. results: a total of 20 relevant case-control studies involving 11,077 cases and 14,798 controls were included in this meta-analysis. overall, there was a significant association between the sult1a1 arg213his (rs9282861) polymorphism and risk of breast cancer in the allele mode (a vs. g: or=1.117, 95% ci: 1.011, 1.233, p=0.029) and the homozygote model (aa vs. gg: or=1.288, 95% ci: 1.036, 1.601, p=0.022). subgroup analysis based on ethnicity suggested sult1a1 arg213his (rs9282861) polymorphism had a subtly increased breast cancer risk among asian population, but not caucasians. further, subgroup analyses, significant associations were observed in hospital based group, rflp-pcr group, and high quality studies subgroups. conclusions: this meta-analysis suggested that sult1a1 arg213his (rs9282861) polymorphism might be associated with breast cancer risk, especially among asian population. moreover, the sult1a1 arg213his polymorphism is of high clinical relevance by ethnicity and would be a useful marker to identify patients who are at higher risk for breast cancer.