The four significant SNPs were located in or near TGFBR2, STAT3 and CCND1. Since TGFBR2 and CCND1 have been identified as breast cancer susceptibility loci in previous studies (French et al. 2013; Michailidou et al. 2013; Rhie et al. 2013), we focused on the association of the SNP at STAT3. The variant rs1905339 (A>G) at STAT3 was positively associated with overall breast cancer risk (per allele odds ratio (OR) 1.05, 95 % confidence interval (CI) 1.03–1.08, p value = 1.4 × 10−6). Here, TGFBR2 is linked to breast cancer.