We read with great interest the paper titled BX-ray repair cross-complementing group 1 codon 399 polymorphism and lung cancer risk: an updated meta-analysis^pub-lished by Wang et al in Tumor Biology, 2014, 35:411-418. Their results suggest that codon 399 polymorphism of XRCC1 gene might contribute to individual's susceptibility to lung cancer in Asian population and especially in nonsmoking Chinese women. The result is encouraging. Nevertheless, several key issues are worth noticing.Keywords XRCC1 . Polymorphism . Lung cancer . RiskThe X-ray repair cross-complementing group 1 (XRCC1) gene is a major DNA repair gene involved in base excision repair (BER) and single-strand break (SSB) repair. XRCC1 interacts strongly with poly[ADP-ribose] polymerase 1 (PARP1), which recognizes SSBs, and LIGIII that seals SSBs and BER intermediates [1]. Several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been identified in the XRCC1 gene [2], and the potential associations with lung cancer risk have been proposed [3][4][5][6]. Among them, a polymorphism of rs25487 (Arg399Gln, G>A) is one the most extensively studied SNPs, which leads to amino acid substitutions (exon 10). This mutation could alter XRCC1 function, diminish repair kinetics, and influence susceptibility to cancers. To date, a considerable number of studies have investigated the association between XRCC1 Arg399Gln polymorphism and lung cancer risk . However, the results remained conflicting rather than conclusive.Recently, we have read with great interest the paper titled BX-ray repair cross-complementing group 1 codon 399 polymorphism and lung cancer risk: an updated meta-analysisp ublished online in Tumor Biology, 2014, 35:411-418 [3]. The authors performed a meta-analysis of 46 studies on the association between XRCC1 codon 399 polymorphism and lung cancer risk published before June 2013. In general population, the authors found that the M (Gln) allele and MM (Gln/Gln) genotype were associated with an increased risk of lung cancer compared with C (Arg) allele and CC (Arg/ Arg) genotype, and the odds ratios (ORs) were 1.06 [95 % confidence interval (95 %CI) 1.01-1.12] and 1.19 (95 % CI 1.05-1.34), respectively. When it was stratified according to Asian population, the association between XRCC1 codon 399 polymorphism and lung cancer risk was further strengthened.