Abstract: Objective Human papillomavirus(HPV) infection is considered an important risk factor in esophageal cancer development, but the results of epidemiological studies among people in China exhibited great difference. Thus, a rigorous systematic evaluation from the available epidemiologic data is necessary to reveal the association between the esophageal cancer and HPV infection, particularly, highrisk HPV types(16 and 18) infection in the Chinese population. Methods The associated researches of China's HPV infection and esophageal cancer were retrieved by the internet technology in the CNKI, Pubmed, and other databases. The data from case-control studies published in literature between 1982 and 2009 were collected. Meta analysis was performed to evaluate the association between the HPV infection and esophageal cancer by using the Revman 5.0 and Stata 10.0 software. Simultaneously, Egger's test was used to evaluate the publication bias. Results In a total of 19 papers, 20 casecontrol studies were included. In the meta-analysis of the 19 papers, the result showed HPV infection in Chinese population was associated with esophageal cancer(combined OR value was 3.30, 95% CI: 2.13-5.11) by the calculation with random effect model(REM). The Egger's test showed that there was no significant publication bias(P=0.160). Within the sub-group analysis on the high and low incidence areas of esophageal cancer, HPV detection methods, different settings of the control group, the results had presented the existence of esophageal cancer risk(P<0.05). Conclusion Although the diversity in esophageal cancer incidence in different areas, the different settings of the normal control group, and the different methods to HPV detection, the high-risk HPV types(16 and 18) infection and esophageal cancer still showed a significant association in susceptibility.

Key words: human papillomavirus, esophageal cancer, meta analysis