No Association Between -159C/T Polymorphism of the CD14 Gene and Asthma Risk: a Meta-Analysis of 36 Case-Control Studies.

Numerous studies have evaluated the association between -159C/T polymorphism of the CD14 gene and asthma risk; however, these studies have yielded inconsistent results. We performed meta-analyses to investigate the association between CD14-159C/T polymorphism and asthma risk. Studies were identified from PubMed, Embase, and two Chinese databases. Odds ratios (ORs) with 95 % confidence interval (CI) were used to evaluate the strength of association. Thirty-six studies were collected for meta-analysis, which involved 6954 cases and 7525 controls. In the overall populations, no significant association between the CD14-159C/T polymorphism and asthma risk was found for the dominant (OR = 0.90, 95 % CI = 0.81-1.01, P = 0.08) or other models; stratified analyses indicated that the CD14-159C/T polymorphism was not associated with asthma risk in Caucasians or Asians or adults or children. Among the atopic asthma populations, no significant results were observed in the all-combined or subgroup analyses. This meta-analysis demonstrates that the CD14-159C/T polymorphism may not be a risk factor for asthma.