Tumor necrosis factor alpha gene -308G>A polymorphism association with the risk of esophageal cancer in a Han Chinese population.

ABSTRACT

In the present study, we aimed to investigate the association between the TNF-α-308G>A polymorphism and the risk of esophageal cancer in a Han Chinese population. The case group included 342 patients with esophageal cancer and the control group comprised 300 healthy individuals. The TNF-α-308G>A polymorphism was genotyped using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism. Conditional logistic regression was performed to analyze the associations between TNF-α-308 G>A polymorphism variation and the risk of esophageal cancer, which were estimated by ORs and their 95%CIs. The results indicated that the genotypic frequencies in the patients were not similar to those of the controls, and that the differences were statistically significant (P = 0.014). Using the GG genotype as the reference genotype, the AA genotype was found to be significantly associated with an increased risk of esophageal cancer (adjusted OR = 8.91, 95%CI = 4.72-17.89, P = 0.007). Similarly, the AG+AA genotypes showed 7.82-fold increased esophageal cancer risk in a dominant model. Furthermore, we found that the A allele was significantly associated with a higher risk of esophageal cancer than the G allele (OR = 6.26, 95%CI = 2.73-10.35, P = 0.013). The results of this study therefore suggested that the presence of the high producer -308A allele in the TNF-α gene appeared to be associated with an increased risk for the development of esophageal cancer in the Han Chinese population.