Abstract: Objective X-ray repair cross complementing 1 (XRCC1) belongs to the base excision repair(BER). Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in XRCC1 gene may affect DNA repairing ability and genetic susceptibility to cancer. This study was designed to investigate the correlation of XRCC1 Arg194Trp,Arg399Gln and Arg280His SNPs with the risk of gastric cardiac adenocarcinoma in a population from Hebei province of China. Methods XRCC1 SNPs were genotyped by polymerase chain reaction-restrictive fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) analysis in 455 GCA patients and 650 healthy controls. Results The overall allele and genotype distribtions of XRCC1 Arg194Trp and Arg399Gln in GCA patients were not significantly different from those in healthy controls(P>0.05). When stratified for smoking status, at the codon 280, the frequency of allele His (11.5％) was significantly higher than the healthy controls (8.2％); the Arg/Arg, Arg/His, His/His genotpye frequencies in patients and smoker controls group were 77.9％,21.2％,0.9 ％ and 84.9％,13.7％,1.4％ respectively. There was a significant difference between the two group (χ2=4.107，P=0.043). A significant increase in GCA risk was seen among smoking groups if they carried at least one XRCC1 280 His allele (OR=1.572, 95％CI=1.00-2.51) compared to smoking individuals not carrying these genotype. Conclusion The XRCC1 Arg194Trp,Arg399Gln,Arg280His may not be associated with the risk of GCA. However, the smoking individuals with the His allele in Arg280His may face increased the risk of the GCA.