Tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) is critical in the regulation of inflammation and tumour progression. TNF-α-308G > A is associated with constitutively elevated TNF-α expression. The purpose of this study was to assess the association between TNF-α-308G > A and breast cancer (BC) risk by subtype and the connection between genotypes and clinical features of BC. A total of 768 patients and 565 controls were enrolled in this study, and genotypes were detected using the TaqMan assay. No effect on susceptibility for any BC subtype was found for the TNF-α-308 polymorphism in our study or in the pooled meta-analysis. This polymorphism was shown to be associated with age at menarche in all BC and in progesterone receptor-negative BC. Interestingly, triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients with TNF-α-308A had an increased risk of distant tumour metastasis (OR = 3.80, 95% CI: 1.31–11.02, P = 0.009). Multi-regression analysis showed that TNF-α-308A was also a risk factor for distant tumour metastasis after adjustment for tumour size and lymph node metastasis status (OR = 6.26, 95% CI: 1.88–20.87, P = 0.003). These findings indicate that TNF-α might play a distinct role in the progression of TNBC, especially in distant tumour metastasis of TNBC.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.