Abstract: Several epidemiological studies have reported that polymorphisms in microRNA-196a2 (miR-196a2) were associated with various cancers. However, the results remained unverified and were inconsistent in different cancers. Therefore, we carried out an updated meta-analysis to elaborate the effects of rs11614913 polymorphism on cancer susceptibility. A total of 84 articles with 35,802 cases and 41,541 controls were included to evaluate the association between the miR-196a2 rs11614913 and cancer risk by pooled odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). The results showed that miR-196a2 rs11614913 polymorphism is associated with cancer susceptibility, especially in lung cancer (homozygote comparison, OR =0.840, 95% CI =0.734–0.961; recessive model, OR =0.858, 95% CI =0.771–0.955), hepatocellular carcinoma (allelic contrast, OR =0.894, 95% CI =0.800–0.998; homozygote comparison, OR =0.900, 95% CI =0.813–0.997; recessive model, OR =0.800, 95% CI =0.678–0.944), and head and neck cancer (allelic contrast, OR =1.076, 95% CI =1.006–1.152; homozygote comparison, OR =1.214, 95% CI =1.043–1.413). In addition, significant association was found among Asian populations (allele model, OR =0.847, 95% CI =0.899–0.997, P =0.038; homozygote model, OR =0.878, 95% CI =0.788–0.977, P =0.017; recessive model, OR =0.895, 95% CI =0.824–0.972, P =0.008) but not in Caucasians. The updated meta-analysis confirmed the previous results that miR-196a2 rs11614913 polymorphism may serve as a risk factor for patients with cancers.
Keywords: miR-196a2, polymorphisms, cancer risk, meta-analysis