An updated meta-analysis was conducted to explore whether lung cancer risk could be attributed to the following ERCC1 polymorphisms: rs11615 (T>C), rs3212986 (C>A), rs3212961 (A>C), rs3212948 (G>C), rs2298881 (C>A).
MDR (multifactor dimensionality reduction) analysis demonstrated the best significant model of two-attributes containing smoking duration and rs2298881 in ERCC1 (P=0.004-0.005) and suggested that the effects of high-order interactions among smoking duration and ERCC2, PPP1R13, ERCC1 htSNPs could modulate lung cancer risk.
Thus, the variant alleles of rs3212961 [OR (95% CI)=1.81(1.03-3.17), P=0.04] and rs2298881 [OR (95% CI)=2.16(1.26-3.70), P=0.005] were associated with risk of lung cancer among long-term smokers (>20 years) but not among never smokers and short-term smokers.