BackgroundHypoxia inducible factor 1-alpha (HIF1A) is a transcription factor that plays important role in regulating cascade of reactions. In this study, the effect of rs11549465 (1772 C/T) and rs11549467 (1790 G/A) polymorphisms of HIF1A gene and its association with cancers were investigated through meta-analysis.MethodsMeta-analysis of genome wide association studies of HIF1A 1772 C/T polymorphism were conducted on 22 case-control studies of sample size 19024 and for 1790 G/A polymorphism 19 case-control studies were included with sample size 10654. Genotype and allelic frequency compared between cases and controls together with further subgroup analyses were carried out by cancer type and ethnicity.ResultsMeta-analysis from this study indicated that HIF1A 1772 C/T polymorphism is significantly associated with overall cancer risk. T allele and genotype TT are significantly associated with increasing overall cancer risk; odds ratios (OR) dominant model [TT + CT vs. CC: OR 1.30, 95 % CI (1.06-1.59), p-value: 0.0115], and T allele vs. C allele: OR 1.32, 95 % CI (1.07-1.63), p-value: 0.0098. Also, HIF1A 1790 G/A polymorphism, analyses showed that A allele and genotype AA are significantly associated with increasing overall cancer risk; odds ratios (OR) homozygote comparison [AA vs. GG: OR 5.10, 95 % CI (3.12-8.33), p-value: <0.0001], heterozygote comparison [GA vs. GG: OR 1.74, 95 % CI (1.20-2.52), p-value: 0.0033], dominant model [AA + GA vs. GG: OR 1.82, 95 % CI (1.26-2.62), p-value: 0.0014], recessive model [AA vs. GA + GG: OR 3.79, 95 % CI (2.34-6.15), p-value: <0.0001] and A allele vs. G allele: OR 1.82, 95 % CI (1.31-2.52), p-value: 0.0003.ConclusionIn detail meta-analysis indicated that both the polymorphisms 1772 C/T and 1790 G/A are significantly associated with overall cancer risk. The subgroup analyses showed that lung cancer is significantly associated with both polymorphisms. Although the 1772 C/T polymorphism is significantly associated with decreasing risk of renal cell carcinoma but the 1790 G/A polymorphism has shown to significantly increase the cancer risk in both Caucasian and Asian population. Thus, HIF1A could be a useful prognostic marker for cancers early predisposition.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40364-015-0054-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.