Introduction: The study aimed to assess the association between human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DRB1 allele polymorphisms and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) susceptibility.
Evidence acquisition: Relevant case-control studies on HLA-DRB1 allele correlation with HCC risk published between 2000 and 2015 were searched and retrieved in literature database. The odds ratio (OR) with its 95% confidence interval (CI) were employed to calculate the strength of association. Total 16 articles including 2208 HCC patients and 3028 relevant controls were finally screened out.
Evidence synthesis: A total of 12 case-control studies including 2030 HCC patients and 2817 relevant controls were screened out. Thirteen alleles (HLA-DRB1 *01, *03, *04, *07, *08, *09, *10, *11, *12, *13, *14, *15, and *16) were reported. Overall, we found that HLA-DRB1 *1 and *11 allele polymorphisms were significantly associated with decreased the HCC risk (*1: OR=0.53, 95% CI: 0.29-0.96, P=0.04; *11: OR=0.58, 95% CI: 0.38-0.88, P=0.010); while *12 and *14 allele polymorphisms were significantly associated with increased the HCC risk (*12: OR=1.49, 95% CI: 1.08-2.07, P=0.02; *14: OR=1.89, 95% CI: 1.27-2.82, P=0.002) in a fixed-effect model. However, other HLA-DRB1 allele polymorphisms were not associated with HCC susceptibility (P>0.05).
Conclusions: HLA-DRB1 *1 and *11 allele polymorphisms were protective factors, *12 and *14 allele polymorphisms were risk factors for HCC development. Future large-scale studies with more ethnicities are still needed.