Polymorphisms in inflammation-related genes and risk of gastric cancer (Finland).

Helicobacter pylori infection is an important risk factor for gastric cancer, but <3% of carriers of this organism will ever develop gastric cancer. Since inflammation plays a significant role in gastric carcinogenesis, it has been suggested that polymorphisms in genes involved in inflammatory response may partly explain why only a subgroup of patients infected with H. pylori develop gastric cancer. We compared relative frequencies of 17 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in eight inflammation-related genes between 112 gastric cancer patients and 208 controls. Cases and controls were selected from a large cohort of Finnish male smokers who were recruited into the Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention (ATBC) Study. The studied SNPs were IL-1A (-889 C/T), IL-1B (-511 C/T and -31 T/C), IL-6 (-174 G/C and -597 G/A), IL-8 (-251 T/A, +396 T/G and +781 C/T), IL-8RA (Ex2 +860 G/C), IL-8RB (Exon 3 +1235 T/C, Exon 3 +811 C/T, and Exon 3 +1010 G/A), IL-10 (-819 C/T, -592 C/A, -1082 A/G), and TNF A (-308 G/A, -238 G/A). We found no statistically significant association between any of these SNPs, or the number of pro-inflammatory polymorphisms, with risk of gastric cancer. Our results do not support the hypothesis that polymorphisms in genes involved in the inflammatory response confer differences in gastric cancer risk among different individuals.