Given the fact that TP53 exhibits diverse behaviors and is involved in various regulatory roles during carcinogenesis, elucidating the role of wild-type and mutated TP53 in the development of OSCC remains a challenge. 5–8 In an updated meta-analysis, Sun et al. 12 conducted an updated meta-analysis of 17 case-control studies from 16 articles with 3047 cases of OSCC and 3305 health controls, and concluded that there was no significant association between TP53 codon 72 polymorphism and the risk of OSCC in either the Asian or Caucasian population. This data was in agreement with the result from another contemporaneous meta-analysis. 28 Interestingly, Sun et al.12 performed an additional meta-analysis of 6 case-control studies from 5 articles with 391 cases of OLK and 763 health controls, and also found that no significant association of TP53 codon 72 polymorphism with OLK susceptibility. In this study, we highlighted the potential role of TP53 codon 72 polymorphism in the risk of onset and progression of general OPMD (containing OLK, oral lichen planus, and oral submucous fibrosis) through a pooled-analysis of 13 case-control studies. Overall, the results of this study indicated that TP53 codon 72 polymorphism may not also be associated with the risk of OPMD onset and progression.
Recently, overexpression of p53 immunoprotein was demonstrated to be significantly associated with malignant progression of OPMD. 13 This was inconsistent with the result of TP53 codon 72 polymorphism not associated with OPMD progression in this study, suggesting p53 overexpression in OPMD progression could be not influenced by TP53 codon 72 polymorphism. Tandon et al. examined TP53 codon 72 gene polymorphism and p53 immunoexpression in 6 cases of OLK and 35 cases of OSCC, but they did not investigate the relationship between TP53 polymorphism and p53 immunoexpression in two groups. Zhang et al. 29 reported that p53 protein expression was identified to be affected by TP53 codon 72 polymorphism in low rectal cancer. Dastjerdi MN 30 reported that TP53 codon 72 polymorphism may be correlated with p53 overexpression and increased risk for colorectal cancer. Al-Dhaheri et al. 31 reported that p53 overexpression in the progression towards malignancy of preneoplastic and neoplastic rat mammary glands associated with TP53 polymorphism; while Rybárová et al. 32 reported that no statistically significant difference was found between TP53 codon 72 polymorphism and p53 protein expression in human breast cancer. These variations in results might be possible due to organ specificity and species differences.
Meta-analysis allows stronger quantitative synthesis for identifying some models of risk markers, and reduces the limitations of the relatively small sample size and sampling bias of individual studies. 12,28 Although the efforts in performing a comprehensive analysis, certain limitations need to be addressed in this study. First, the number of eligible studies available with the pooled sample size of most studies was small and in both overall and subgroup analyses; and it is possible that some relevant studies in some localized databases were missed. Secondly, the effect of the confounding ingredients in gene-environment exposures and lifestyle habits interactions such as environmental factors, and tobacco and alcohol use, were not estimated in the current study due to data available limitation (Table 1). Thirdly, the results were of heterogeneity in some genetic models, possible due to role of various factors such as geographic distribution and racial differences on various predisposing factors involving lifestyle habits. Therefore, to obtain a more accurate results of TP53 codon 72 polymorphism on OPMD onset and progression, additional well-designed studies with larger sample sizes and diverse ethnicities are warranted to validate the associations.
In summary, this is the first pooled-analysis to investigate the association between TP53 codon 72 polymorphism and OPMD onset and progression, suggesting that TP53 polymorphism may not act as genetic factor for the risk of this disease. Combined with the conclusion by a systematic review and meta-analysis,13 we put forward a new opinion that TP53 genetic typing cloud not influence p53 protein expression in OPMD. Further studies are needed to consolidate this opinion.