ObjectivesTo systematically review the association between the variants of HNF1B gene and the risk of prostate cancer.MethodsPubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library, CNKI, CBM and WanFang Data databases were electronically searched to collect case-control studies on the association between the variants of HNF1B gene and risk of prostate cancer from inception to December, 2017. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies. Meta-analysis was then performed using Stata 14.0 software.ResultsA total of 15 case-control studies involving 30 532 patients and 38 832 controls were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that: there was a strong significant association between rs4430796 variants (Gvs.A: OR=0.802, 95%CI 0.784 to 0.821, P<0.001; GGvs.AA: OR=0.659, 95%CI 0.606 to 0.717, P<0.001; AGvs.AA: OR=0.762, 95%CI 0.714 to 0.814, P<0.001), rs11649743 variants (Avs.G: OR=0.875, 95%CI 0.820 to 0.941, P<0.001; AAvs.GG: OR=0.669, 95%CI 0.564 to 0.792, P<0.001; AGvs.GG: OR=0.855, 95%CI 0.798 to 0.916, P<0.001), rs7501939 variants (Avs.G: OR=0.833, 95%CI 0.807 to 0.859, P<0.001), rs3760511 variants (Avs.C: OR=0.834, 95%CI 0.803 to 0.868, P<0.001) and risk of prostate cancer.ConclusionsCurrent evidence shows that HNF1B gene variants are associated with risk of prostate cancer. Due to limited quantity and quality of the included studies, more high quality studies are required to verify the above conclusion.