Sensitivity analysis & publication bias
Sensitivity analyses were conducted through omitting one study at a
time. We also conducted sensitivity analysis by removing the study
deviating from HWE. No material changes of the pooled ORs were found
after omitting any single study or the HWE-violating study[15] in all genetic models for Arg16Gly
polymorphism and in dominant, heterozygous and additive models for
Gln27Glu polymorphism. However, as for Gln27Glu polymorphism, the
corresponding pooled ORs were considerably changed after deleting a
single study [17] at a time in the recessive model
(OR=0.348, 95% CI: 0.093-1.308, P =0.118), allele model
(OR=0.700, 95% CI: 0.428-1.145, P =0.155) and homozygous model
(OR=0.334, 95% CI: 0.087-1.288, P =0.111). Egger’s test and
Egger’s test were performed to detect the possibility of publication
bias. The results demonstrated that publication bias under any genetic
models was inapparent (data not shown). The funnel plots showed no
obvious asymmetries (Figure 5).