OBJECTIVE: To explore the correlation between p73 G4C14-to-A4T14 polymorphism and lung cancer risk. METHODS: The meta analysis was conducted from October 2017 to March 2018, and comprised studies published till March 27, 2018, that addressed the relationship between the p73 G4C14-to-A4T14 polymorphism and risk of lung cancer, and were available on databases including PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Cochrane Library and China National Knowledge Infrastructure. Pooled odds ratio with corresponding 95% confidence interval and subgroup analysis between ethnicities were carried out to assess the association between the two parameters using four different models. Stata 12 was used for data analysis. RESULTS: For overall population, there was no significant risk of lung cancer for the polymorphism under allele and dominant genetic models. However, reduced risks were found under homozygous (AT/AT vs GC/GC; p=0.02) and recessive (AT/AT vs GC/AT + GC/GC; p=0.02) comparison models. Subgroup analysis between ethnicities demonstrated reduced risk of lung cancer for the polymorphism under the four genetic comparison models for Asian population, but increased risk for the Caucasian group. CONCLUSIONS: AT/AT variant carriers possessed reduced susceptibility of lung cancer in the general population. Ethnic differences for the p73 gene polymorphism played an important role in lung cancer susceptibility.