Osteoprotegerin (OPG) has been demonstrated to be a novel biomarker for predicting prevalence and severity of coronary artery disease (CAD). Furthermore, recent studies have shown that OPG gene polymorphisms are associated with a susceptibility to CAD. However, published studies showed inconsistent results. Therefore, a meta-analysis of eligible studies reporting the association between OPG gene polymorphisms and CAD was carried out. A systematic search was conducted using PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Chinese Wan Fang databases. Odds ratio (OR) with corresponding 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were calculated. Overall, six eligible studies were included and four OPG gene polymorphisms (G209A, T245G, T950C and G1181C) were further evaluated for the association with susceptibility to CAD in this meta-analysis. Meta-analysis showed that G1181C and T950C polymorphisms were strongly associated with the risk of CAD, but no association existed between G209A and T245G polymorphisms and the risk of CAD. In conclusion, our meta-analysis is the first report to estimate the association between OPG gene polymorphisms and susceptibility to CAD. Further large scale case-control studies with rigorous design should be conducted to confirm the above conclusions in the future.
