Studies were

conducted in different ethnicities, mainly in European populations; eight studies [8, 10–12, 15–17, 31] were conducted in populations of European ethnicity, and one study [14] was conducted in Marco Africans. The Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) p values of C282Y or H63D genotypes were below 0.05 in the controls of three studies [8, 12, 17]. The disequilibrium might be caused by population stratification or by genotyping errors. The meta-analysis results were then assessed by excluding these studies. Meta-analysis results C282Y The selleckchem frequency of the C282Y Y allele was 6.17% (136/2204) and 5.08% (383/7352) in cases and controls (p = 0.046), respectively, indicating that the variant allele was more frequent in cases. At first, we performed the meta-analysis of nine studies including all controls

to explore the association of C282Y polymorphism and HCC. Meta-analysis showed that C282Y polymorphism was associated with HCC in allele contrast model (Y vs. C): FE OR reached 1.50 (95%CI: 1.05-2.14) (Figure 1) (Table 2). There was distinct heterogeneity among studies (p for heterogeneity = 0.02, I2 = 0.57). Sensitivity analysis showed that click here the result was not robust. There was no distinct small-study bias among the studies (Egger’s p = 0.39). The meta-analysis of dominant model showed a non-significant increased risk to HCC: RE OR was 1.43 (95%CI: 0.98-2.07, p for heterogeneity = 0.02, I2 = 0.55). There was no distinct small-study bias among the studies (Egger’s p Carnitine palmitoyltransferase II = 0.68). Figure 1 Forest plot of the RE ORs and 95% CIs of the association between HCC and the C282Y mutation (Y vs. C) of nine studies. The combined estimate is indicated by the diamond. The solid vertical line

represents the null result. Table 2 Meta-analysis results of C282Y polymorphism and HCC   Nine studies of all samples Seven studies of healthy controls Four studies of alcoholic LC Four studies of viral LC Genetic model Dominant Allele contrast CY vs. CC Dominant Allele contrast Dominant Allele contrast Dominant Allele contrast OR 1.43 1.50 1.31 1.46 1.61 4.06 3.41 0.70 0.71 95%CI 0.98-2.07 1.05-2.14 0.89-1.95 0.96-2.22 1.08-2.39 2.08-7.92 1.81-6.41 0.32-1.50 0.34-1.50 p for hetero 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.04 0.04 0.77 0.47 0.47 0.49 I2 0.55 0.57 0.56 0.54 0.55 0 0 0 0 Egger’s p 0.31 0.39 0.99 0.97 0.65 0.25 0.43 0.51 0.52 Of the nine studies that explored C282Y mutation, seven studies used healthy controls, while five studies used chronic liver disease patients as controls. To clarify Ferrostatin-1 whether or not C282Y increased HCC in subgroups, we performed subgroup analyses between the comparison of (1) HCC and healthy controls of seven studies, (2) HCC and alcoholic LC patients of four studies, (3) HCC and viral LC patients of four studies. (1) When comparing C282Y polymorphisms between HCC cases and healthy controls of seven studies, allele contrast (Y vs.