Minority Uigur women residing in Xinjiang, in the northwest of China, have a high incidence of cervical carcinoma (CC; 527/100 000) and are often diagnosed young. We favor the hypothesis that Uigur women may carry different genetic factor(s) making them more susceptible to CC than majority Han (Chinese) women living in the same region. Using PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism, we investigated associations of a p53Arg72Pro polymorphism with CC in Uigur women compared with those in Han women. The study included 152 Uigur patients with CC and 110 controls, and 120 Han patients with CC and 122 controls. In Uigur women, CC was associated with p5372Arg/Arg homozygosity (chi=7.196, P<0.05) and with human papillomavirus-16 (chi=7.177, P<0.05). In Han women, however, CC was associated with p5372Pro/Pro homozygosity (chi=8.231, P<0.05). These observations suggest that individuals with different genetic backgrounds carry different susceptibilities to CC, at least in the Uigur and Han ethnic women studied in China.