The objective of this study was to identify whether poly morphic variants of p53 at codon 72 and p21 at codon 31 were associated with increased risk for cervical cancer,either independently or jointly,among Chinese women from southe Han.We genotyped p53 codon 72 and p21 codon 31 polymorphisms of peripheral blood DNA from 104 cervical cancer patients and 160 controls.Genotyping was confirmed by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism(PCR-RFLP)and direct DNA sequencing.We observed an increased risk of cervi cal cancer associated with the p53 Arg/Arg(OR,2.25;95% CI,1.11-4.54)or p21 Ser/Ser(OR,2.09;95% CI,1.04-4.19)genotype,compared with the p53 Pro/Pro or p21 Arg/Arg genotype,respectively.In additional,inter action between these pS3 and p21 polymorphisms increased the risk of cervical cancer in a multiplicative manner,with the OR being 3.96(95% CI,1.51-10.41)for subjects carrying both p53 Arg/Arg and p21 Ser/Ser genotypes.These findings suggest that there is a significant association between the genetic polymorphism of pS3,p21,and the risk of cervical cancer among Chinese southe women,and there is a possible gene-gene inter action in the incidence of cervical cancer.