Association between EHBP1 rs721048(A>G) polymorphism and prostate cancer susceptibility: a meta-analysis of 17 studies involving 150,678 subjects.

Background: EHBP1 rs721048(A) was first identified as a prostate cancer (PCa) risk in Caucasians by genome-wide association study, but subsequent replication studies involving Caucasian and other ethnicities did not produce consistent results. The aim of this study was to obtain a more definite association between rs721048(A) and PCa risk.

Methods: We comprehensively searched several databases updated to September 2014, including PubMed, Web of Science, EBSCO, and Google Scholar. Two authors independently screened and reviewed the eligibility of each study. The quality of the included studies was assessed by the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. The association of rs721048(A) and PCa risk was assessed by pooling odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs).

Results: A total of 17 studies, including 48,135 cases and 102,543 controls, published between 2008 and 2014 were included in the meta-analysis. Overall, the pooled analysis demonstrated that rs721048(A) was significantly associated with the risk of PCa under the allele model (OR=1.14, 95% CI=1.11-1.17, P=0.000). Subgroup analysis based on ethnicity revealed a significant association between rs721048(A) and PCa in Caucasian (OR=1.14, 95% CI=1.11-1.16, P=0.000), African descent (OR=1.11, 95% CI=1.01-1.23, P=0.025), and Asian (OR=1.35, 95% CI=1.12-1.64, P=0.002).

Conclusion: Our results provided strong evidence that rs721048(A) could be a risk factor for PCa.