Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most life-threatening malignancies worldwide. Defects in DNA repair genes may increase the risk of HCC. X-ray cross-complementing group 1 gene (XRCC1) is a major DNA repair gene involved in base excision re-pair. Recently, several studies have indicated that an association exists between XRCC1 polymorphism and HCC, particularly the Arg280His polymorphism. However, the data is inconsistent and incomplete. In this study, we conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the association between the XRCC1 Arg280His polymorphism and HCC risk. A total of 10 case-control studies included 1848 HCC cases and 1969 controls were examined in this analysis. Our results suggest that variant geno-types of the XRCC1 Arg280His gene are associated with a significantly increased risk of HCC in homozygote comparison (HisHis vs ArgArg, odds ratio, 1.55, 95% confidence interval, 1.10-2.18, P = 0.013); no het-erogeneity was observed (I2 = 0%). Our analysis suggests that the XRCC1 Arg280His polymorphism is associated with a higher risk of HCC.