Association between the interleukin 17F rs763780 polymorphism and immune thrombocytopenia risk: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Abstract

The literature on the Interleukin 17F (IL-17F) rs763780 polymorphism and its association with immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) risk remains inconsistent and controversial. These uncertainties underscore the urgent need for a meta-analysis to objectively synthesize the heterogeneous findings, mitigate bias, and improve statistical power. This study strictly adhered to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement and guidelines. A systematic literature search for original studies was conducted across the CNKI, Wanfang Data, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and PubMed databases, covering publications up to April 5, 2026. Odds ratios and corresponding 95% confidence intervals were calculated to assess the association. STATA 14.2 software was used to synthesize the pooled estimates. A total of eight case-control studies consisting of 805 ITP cases and 841 controls were included. The summarized statistics suggested the detrimental effect of the A allele in the homozygote and recessive models. In the sensitivity analysis, the results that were initially non-significant in the allele, heterozygote, and dominant models became significant after excluding a single dataset, which was also identified as the source of heterogeneity. Region-stratified analyses revealed statistical significance in the Chinese/Japanese and Egyptian subgroups under specific analytic contrasts. When stratified according to age, the children subgroup showed significant associations in a subset of genetic models, while the adult counterpart demonstrated significance across all models. In conclusion, the pooled estimates of the homozygote and recessive models suggested that the rs763780 polymorphism is associated with ITP risk, but this finding requires further validation through large-scale studies.